A series on the Discovery Channel I've enjoyed watching recently is Walking with Cavemen. They have started running new series of it and it is really compelling. Mom and Dad had a collection of the Time-Life Series: The Emergence of Man and it was great stuff to read as a kid. We always had lots of science books, series, and magazines around the house growing up and I have no doubt it contributed to my love of science and reading growing up.
I still really struggle to conceptualize the conditions our forebearers lived under and how they socialized in light of our "high-tech" surroundings. It was tough, but they were smart and clever. While they developed stone tools and honed their technologies as they migrated out the day would come thousands of years later when we would have modern weapons and technology and walk on the moon. It makes my mind spin.
Then there is the series "Man vs. Wild" where a modern survivalist leads us into surviving the wilds without almost any technology at all. And the just wrapped up run of "Everest: Beyond the Limit" proving there are places that man can go on the face of the earth that even with the best of technology...probably shouldn't.
"I Shouldn't Be Alive" is another compelling series where common folk like us get dropped into unimaginably harsh survival conditions and existence is no longer certain.
BLDG BLOG posted a fascinating article about what the world would be like if pate tectonics stopped. Imagine what it would be like. Some scientists think it actually happened at one point in earth's past--and might happen again in another 350 million years.
Useful Resource Link Find
Leggman's Time-Life Library website. Details all of the series offered by Time-Life, now no longer in print. I saw quite a few familiar titles in there that we had.
--Claus
2 comments:
Interesting. I thought I would write a simple "Happy New Year" message to you and the entire Valca family, but as it turns out, the pop up comment window for your site is now appearing in Japanese characters. Fortunately, most are katakana, so I can figure it out for the most part. Maybe the new and improved blogger is picking up that I'm in Japan so it's trying to help me read in my computer's native language? Regardless... happy new year from my family to yours!
Mike
Hi Mike and family!
Thanks for the new year's greetings!
Did you make/buy a Shimekazari getting ready for the new year for your door? Each year we talk about doing one and swinging by the craft-store, but it gets forgotten in the holiday rush.
That's very interesting about the blogger comment page. It quite likely is due to the new Blogger system. I don't know if you have moved your's over yet, but do a bit of research before you do! I've made a number of posts regarding my experiences...(mostly in December).
I love the post label tags. The GUI for template arrangements is helpful. But it was a headache getting it all working.
Could you let me know if the comment feature (turning into Japanese) happens in both Firefox and Internet Explorer? I didn't see any obvious settings in the Blogger dashboard that would cause/limit it. A quick search on Google doesn't show anything either, but I'm not surprised if that was a "new feature."
I'll send an email to Blogger Team to see what they say.
Curious indeed...
Cheers!
Post a Comment