Ella & the Strandbeests

[mundens]

Neil pointed to Ella Edmondsen's My Space account saying "She's going to be a star". I enjoyed it. She has Imogen Heap and The Mighty Boosh on her top friends page, so she's got some taste :)

Watched this TED lecture today by Theo Jansen. He's not much of a speaker, but he doesn't have to be, his art speaks for itself. More pictures and

Comments

[elfs]

evolution has stopped in developed countries.

Nonsense.

Evolution cannot stop. Trying to proclaim that it exists for H. sapiens in one region, but not in another, especially when gene pool remixing is happening at rate never before seen in our species, is to be misinformed. The author of the original shows both a teleological misunderstanding of evolutionary biology and a real failure to grasp our own biological history. I mean, what's that rubbish about "few men over the age of 35 are reproducing, and age is a valuable source of mutations?" Does this guy have any idea at all that for most of our evolutionary period, most of us didn't even live to see 40? That polygamous tribal systems concentrated an awful lot of genetic in single male individuals?

But the key, important part is described in the phrase "as good as it gets." Get this through the thick skull of everyone who says anything remotely like that: evolution does not care if your progeny are smarter, stronger, faster, or live longer. All evolution does is weed out

[mundens]

Yeah, I know that, one of the reasons I didn't even bother to name him was that I think he's an idiot.

Saying "he's probably right" was, in retrospect, a mistake.

It wasn't meant as an agreement with his biological arguments just with the general idea that those in developed countries are effectively becoming "less survivable" outside of their cotton-wool environment, and that even if his argument was correct, all that means is that the future would come out of non-developed nations

I'm currently watching on TV an attempt by a New Zealander from the city to live sustainably in the country and finding the lack of knowledge on living off the land even in our country, where at least everyone knows where cheese and milk come from, is surprising for some-one like myself who was brought up in a time where everyone was expected to be able to kill and prepare a chicken, milk a cow, etc.