Humans and Our Origins

Interestingly, to me, there is more and more about how Neanderthal's were more inteligent and sophisticated than originally thought.

Getty Images - got it on Google

It used to be thought that they were in the lineage and went away as we became more developed and evolved. Back about 36 years ago I was having a conversation with a friend who was studying anthropology at SIU and we were talking about prehistoric humans. I suggested that the entire concept of apes to proto-humans to hominids to homosapiens was questionable.

My theory was that there were many varieties of humans and the more adaptive and smart ones continued to evolve. The others simply became extinct. Just an application of Natural Selection. It seems that now this concept is becoming the new idea of human history. Anthropologists have discovered that Neanderthal's were much smarter, sophisticated and social than previously thought. They have discovered remnants of vegetable and grains in the plaque scraped from the teeth of Neanderthals. This clearly demonstrates they used fire and ate not only meat. In Bob's opinion Neanderthals were a completely different family/species of humans and they simply weren't successful in evolving their lineage. Died out and were gone.

Modern Tech - A Brief Trip Down Memory Lane

Every once in a while I actually remember things. Recently the Apple iPad rang a bell for me. It brought back memories of the old William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy days of StarTrek. They had computer tablets that they used for everything.

Just like an iPad.

Browser Wars

After over 30 years of using computers and working in the IT (Information Technology) Industry I am a little confused about why all the Tech websites seem to participate in what I refer to as the Marketing wars. I will occasionally comment on these things since I am only interested in what works well and makes using various things simpler.

All the browsers have their respective strengths and weaknesses. I have used Netscape (yeah the really old beginning days of the Internet one) and  Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox and Opera and Chrome. They all have their features you love or don't love so much.

The speed of the browser is not really very important. The slowest one vs. the quickest one is a small period of time that most people won't even perceive. If various folks actually "test" the speed of pages loading in a browser window the results are more related to the server the page is coming from and the huge variability of the network speed. It changes constantly. That is why when you might be up at 4:00 in the morning and log into email and open up your home page it seem like everything goes so much faster then normal. That's because everyone else is sleeping and the network (yes, the Internet) is less saturated with everyone watching You-Tube and everything else.

The real issue to be focused on is the user interface. IE is pretty basic and works well for me. I like Opera as well. Lot's of features that you won't find anywhere else. Chrome is nice. Firefox is too. But, I have several plug-ins that I need and IE wins for me.

Observational Abilities

For some strange reason I have always been able to understand how optical illusions work, spot hidden objects and find the patterns in images. Somehow this morning I got the notion that perhaps the reason for that is because I have never had binocular vision. I switch from eye to eye. I imagine that is because I had what is referred to colloquially as crossed-eyes as a young child. The Opthamologist had me wear a patch over my left eye to try to strengthen the muscles that aim the crossed eye and get it to center up. So, maybe that is how my mind changed to monocular vision.

I do the optical thing quite a bit since I find it interesting. So go to http://games.yahoo.com/braingames/brain-teasers and play around a little.

TV the Vast Wasteland

Interesting that as I get older I am in fact getting cranky. One thing that is on my list of annoyances is television. After watching TV for 58 years I am at a point where I won't watch it much anymore. TV has always been referred to as "Commercial Television". To me that is a differentiator from free TV.

It used to be that a 30 minute TV show would have a commercial break at the 15 minute mark. Of course there would be commercials after the end, which was just before the beginning of the next show. Now, to me at least, Commercial Television is all commercials occasionally interrupted by a few minutes of the program I can't often keep my interest in. I actually timed things and there were 6 minutes of show and 3 to 5 minutes of commercials. So, the content is about 30-40% commercials. Groan. . .

One other example is when I am trying to watch a NASCAR race. I can't even watch 2 complete laps before they go to commercial. At the end we get to see that last few but I have to admit that when it is so interrupted all the time it isn't watching a race. It is, watching commercials for 4 hours. Bye Bye NASCAR and TV.

So then, not that you care, I just get frustrated and off I go into a rant. Feeling a bit mad at myself but it is not something I tolerate very well. TV is truly a vast wasteland. A good example of what I am ranting about is try watching anything in the morning. All commercials. They even come back from commercials and tell you what is coming up and go back to more commercials. So, sit around and enjoy them, I won't.

Earth, are we alone???

Just reading a little and apparently scientists are revising their thoughts on how many stars are in the universe. Apparently they now think there are 300 sextillion of them. That's 3 with 23 zeros. Also, the belief about the structure of galaxies being like the Milky Way are changing as well. Lots of things are different. Not going into all that since it isn't too interesting for most folks. How many dwarf stars vs. giants and gas giant planets etc. etc. etc.

Now the idea is that there could be as many as a trillion Earth-like planets out there. That immediately got me thinking that if there are some number of them that they are orbiting a star similar to ours at the same distance as we are from our star, that we refer to as the Sun and with the same tilt (axis of rotation) and other coincidental similarities that there might be lots more life out there. The next thing that I thought of is that given the formation of chemicals in the seas on them that perhaps there are other coincidental similarities. Amino acids, single cell micro-organisms (yeah, microbes). Then they evolve into proto life-forms. I am guessing that there are lots of dinosaur worlds out there. We would be really different if the dinosaur apocolypse hadn't occurred on Earth.

Not so sure that the mammals would've been able to become the dominant life form. With the meteor strike ending the dinos the surviving mammals got to develop and here we are. If we are lucky to have that in our history and they don't it would be really interesting to see one of those dino worlds. Evolution would have them evolved to some pretty amazing and dangerous (for us) efficiencies which would make them a seriously interesting subject for a Hollywood movie.

Lunch!

Went to lunch with my brother Rick today at a restaurant he likes. It is a Thai restaurant and it is the most amazing place I can imagine. The food is insanely delicious and the service was fantastic. I had the Panang Curry with Pork. It was the best curry I have ever eaten. I want to go there every day for the rest of my life. So, you should go there as well if you are within driving distance. It is named Thai Town. The address is:

574 Randall Road
South Elgin, IL. 60177

They have a website as well: http://www.thaitownelgin.com/