Pre-Cambrian consensus

An interesting article in the NYTimes today on pre-cambrian animals

and geology. I remember from my freshman biology class the Cambrian

explosion, when all the different animals first appeared in the fossil record.

The NYTimes article shows how that record was changed, that now the

Ediacaran period has been added to the geologic timesscale before the

Cambrian, and some complex precambrian animals have been found.

The irony is the first discoverer of these animals submitted the information

to a conference and scientific journals, but was rejected.

Sprigg was excited by both the unusual appearance of the fossils and by their age, which he believed to be the beginning of the Cambrian, and made them the oldest animal forms yet seen. But despite their potential importance, Sprigg’s discoveries were ignored at an international geology meeting and his paper describing the fossils was rejected by the leading journal, . Sprigg moved on to other, more rewarding pursuits in the oil, gas, and mining industries.

This is the way that science should work, new physical information should eventually

cause the theories to be rewritten. What shouldn't happen is a consensus view should

prevent the collection of new information for 50 years. Even something that is very proven, such

as geological history can be updated with bette information. I don't think the NYtimes

noticed the irony, their normal website is all global warming, all the time.

Vacation - Napoli and Sorrento

We went to Napoli

and sorrento on

vacation last week,

and we got to see

Pompeii, Capri

and the Amalfi

coast.

[view of Vesuvius

from Sorrento]

It's too hot in southern Italy to actually go outside during July, but we did anyway

leading to our visit to Pompeii being like the bataan death march.

We stayed a few days in Napoli, (best pizza in Italy) then moved down

the coast to Sorrento taking a hydrofoil across the bay. The hotel in Sorrento

was the Plaza that has a rooftop pool. I'd like a service that could pick you up

by helicopter in Pompei and just fly back and drop you in that pool.

Unfortunately there's no service yet, so we took the CircumVesuviano train

back around to Sorrento, which is a pretty hot dust covered crowd leaving

Pompei. Luckily the Plaza is only about 2 blocks from the station, so we were

safely submerged in cool water 15 minutes after getting back.

The key to getting the best experience out of Pompeii is to go to the Archealogical

museum in Napoli first. Our bad luck there was a strike or some protest

that meant it was open, but we'd have to cross a crowd of angry napolitanos to

get in; no thanks. Most of the best mosaics and casts of people killed in Pompeii

were there.

Also I didn't get up to Herculanum and Vesuvius itself. I figure that next time

we come back it will still be here. After our vacation in NYC in August 2001 I

thought we'd have another chance to go to the WTC and go up to the roof, since

it was rained out when we went. But no. In this case we should be pretty safe

that no jerkwad is going to fly a plane into mount Vesuvius (they are welcome to

try though) so we'll go back some day to Napoli to eat the excellent deserts and

go to the museum and up to the volcano.

2012 - Spoilers

[Spoilers ahead, don't read if you haven't seen the movie]

I watched 2012 last night in HD and the movie did have some

fantastic effects, sort of like a giant chase scene with the Earth

in the pursuit role. I thought the plot was similar to deep impact

and day after tomorrow, but the actions of the government officials

were dumber and more venal.

If the big risk is giant tsunamis, and the solution is to build giant Arks

on mountains, why outsource building of ships in the mountains of Tibet

to the chinses? why would the chinese take our money, build the ships

and then not say "screw off" when the disaster happens. And charging

people 1Billion euros for a ticket seems pretty bs too, if I had several billion

dollars I could build a pretty kick-ass submarine for me and my friends

(ok, it could be a pretty small submarine).

But on the gripping hand, our normal government officials are pretty dumb

and pretty venal, and if there is some looming disaster that they know about

and we don't, we're pretty screwed. The government is just stupid enough

to fill the Arks with a bunch of 70 year old politicians and just male soldiers.

So I guess the movie was a true representation of what is likely. Doh.

Blues under the tuscan sun

I made the last night

of the Pistoia blues festival yesterday
and i finally got to see Robert Cray live.

A really exelllent show, 5 hours of non-stop

blues. Robert Cray and Jimmy Vauhan both
got a little more than an hour, and

Bob put on a show that demonstrated
why he had top billing.

The Italian blues singers were excellent

too, singing in perfect southern
bluesy english, then speaking in italian

sounded pretty weired. Frencesco
Piu was the best blues singer, just one

man with an acoustic guitar, but he only
had 3 songs.

oh well, back to emilia romagna.

Updated back home, added pictures, links.

The other group that played that has a really big future is Cedric Burnside and

Lightnin' Malcolm from Holly Creek Mississippi. Just a Drummer and lead guitar

and they both sang, but they really tore the heck out of their instruments.