The Artificial Ape: Man

We were never fully biological entities. We are, and always have been, the cybernetic ape.

Darwin is one of my heroes, but I believe he was wrong in seeing human evolution as a result of the same processes that account for other evolution in the biological world - especially when it comes to the size of our cranium.

Darwin had to put large cranial size down to sexual selection, arguing that women found brainy men sexy. But biomechanical factors make this untenable. I call this the smart biped paradox: once you are an upright ape, all natural selection pressures should be in favour of retaining a small cranium. That's because walking upright means having a narrower pelvis, capping babies' head size, and a shorter digestive tract, making it harder to support big, energy-hungry brains. Clearly our big brains did evolve, but I think Darwin had the wrong mechanism. I believe it was technology. We were never fully biological entities. We are and always have been artificial apes.

via newscientist.com

They shaped their tools and thereafter their tools shaped us, quite literally says Tim Taylor. Some ancestor like australopithecines started the stone toolmaking so as to fashion power extensions of themselves from sinew, leather, woven grass and wood; add in a pressing need to relieve mama's aching back, and the rest is a tumbling cascade into history...

Your Certificate of Exemption from Enlightenment

via freewillastrology.com

Method of swinging on a swing - Patent 6368227

If ever there was such, here is incontrovertable proof that the Patent system is bent beyond all credibility: Patent #6368227

I claim:

1. A method of swinging on a swing, the method comprising the steps of: a) suspending a seat for supporting a user between only two chains that are hung from a tree branch; b) positioning a user on the seat so that the user is facing a direction perpendicular to the tree branch; c) having the user pull alternately on one chain to induce movement of the user and the swing toward one side, and then on the other chain to induce movement of the user and the swing toward the other side; and d) repeating step c) to create side-to-side swinging motion, relative to the user, that is parallel to the tree branch.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is practiced independently by the user to create the side-to-side motion from an initial dead stop.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the step of: e) inducing a component of forward and back motion into the swinging motion, resulting in a swinging path that is generally shaped as an oval.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the magnitude of the component of forward and back motion is less than the component of side-to-side motion.

Licenses are available from the inventor upon request.

via freepatentsonline.com, on a sidebar tip from Rob Brezny

I don't know about you, but my friends and I were doing prior art on this long before not only the birth of now 17 year old 'inventor', but very likely before the birth of either of his parents or his patent lawyer. If the examiners could accept this as intellectual property, what won't they accept?

Spectacular ancient maple

Spectacular ancient maple, originally uploaded by TeledyN.

The schoolyard fenceruns right through it out behind Hillcrest Elementary;
the boys say it may be a Totoro tree.