Jan 14th, 2009 @ 12:01 pm

“According to the paleontologist Peter Ward, however, nothing could be further from the truth. In his view, the earth’s history makes clear that, left to run its course, life isn’t naturally nourishing - it’s poisonous. Rather than a supple system of checks and balances, he argues, the natural world is a doomsday device careening from one cataclysm to another. Long before humans came onto the scene, primitive life forms were busily trashing the planet, and on multiple occasions, Ward argues, they came close to rendering it lifeless. Around 3.7 billion years ago, they created a planet-girdling methane smog that threatened to extinguish every living thing; a little over a billion years later they pumped the atmosphere full of poison gas. (That gas, ironically, was oxygen, which later life forms adapted to use as fuel.)”

Perspective.

A scientist argues that the natural world isn’t benevolent and sustaining: it’s bent on self-destruction - The Boston Globe

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Horses and Shallow Lakes

Joshua Tuscan spills some thoughts here and they collect in a pool. I live in Philadelphia, btw.

I once cried because I couldn't draw a tree the way I saw it in my head... Granted, it was kindergarten, but it was a defining moment. One of my lifelong goals has been to ride a horse through a shallow lake, seriously, it's in my grade school journal. I lived in Barbados for a while where I almost lost my toe, which has stood as a metaphor in my life for that time. I watch a lot of movies and sometimes I fear that it is cutting into my ability to learn foreign languages. Oh yeah, I like to write beautiful, validated code. (More/Less)

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