So it seems like there has been a lull (or lets just call it a small caesura) with this blog. I have been very busy lining up some life changing events recently and this blog will reflex that. Most impacting is that I have been accepted to grad school at Washington State University in the department of Zoology and Physiology. I am also moving back to my parents ranch to help build the house, fence some of the property, and plenty of other projects. The focus and tone of this blog is going to change tremendously so if you are subscribed to the rss feed you should probably unsubscribe. If you don’t then your feed software will soon be full of unfocused gibberish.

Now that you have been warned, here is a list of projects I plan on working on from April – August and will probably blog about:

- 1 wk of isolation at the silvercrown cabin
- build 1 rock climbing route
- build or maintain 1 trail
- survey of trails around CCR (gps)
- improve beach
- build sweat lodge
- overall ‘mission statement’ for cabin/camping area
- survey lake (charismatic plant/animals, lake geology)
- finish cabin (metal roofing, steps, etc)
- build outhouse
- build greenhouse at ccr
- finish master bedroom
- finish library
- fencing (finish two fences, maybe pond)
- upstairs bathroom (maybe)
- setup the nonprofit
- secure other half of lake
- OLPC grant/wireless internet in town
- get vehicle
- learn how to fix it
- learn how to ride motorcycle and get permit
- Trailtracer ??
- 1 hour write per day
- cardboard relief map
- property assessment maps via gis
- professional photography (3 photos to be happy with)
- eradicate eurasion milfoil from lake

The Loom has a very interesting guest post by evo-devo expert Dr. Jerry Coyne. Coyne lets off a nice diatribe against a New York Times blog post by Olivia Judson that claims recent evidence related to evo-devo corroborates with the theory that new species can arise as a result of single, small, genetic mutations that have large morphological or physiological effects. Coyne argues that the idea of macromutationism is completely wrong and that Judson’s arguments are fallacious conclusions of basic evo-devo research.

Coyne’s essay is a great read and I recommend it to everyone.

Just in case you need an evo-devo primer the New York Times has a good video by Sean B. Carroll and below is a video by 60 Second Science that does a great job of explaining the field of study.

What is Evo-Devo?

According to BirdWeb (Birdweb, 2005), Poecile rufescens favors “dense, moist, coniferous forests.” Although this picture was taken in a similar environment near Snoqualmie Falls, a study by Artman (2003) suggests that P. rufescens prefers a thinned habitat to those left untouched by commercial forest management.

A possible explanation of this may be increased food availability in thinned habitats due to increased ground vegetation and thus a higher density of seeds and berries.

References
Artman, V. (2003). Effects of Commercial Thinning on Breeding Bird Populations in Western Hemlock Forests. American Midland Naturalist, 149, 225-232.

BirdWeb. (2005). Chestnut-backed Chickadee. Retrieved January 13, 2008 from http://www.birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=330.

Perhaps I am a bit slow, but I finally learned a simple way to embed video into my Wordpress blog. Previously I avoided Wordpress because any time I attempted to paste the “embed” code copied from a youtube or google video page into the Wordpress editor it would delete large chunks and spit out crap. I always assumed the reason was related to security. I was wrong: the real reason is the wysiwyg editor. So, the fix is simple, just turn the damn thing off. Go to Users > Your Profile > Uncheck “Use the visual editor when writing”

The above knowledge is all thanks to a video by jdh358 found on youtube . To show my new prowess I have embedded the video below.

To better understand our natural world would you be willing to stick your tongue into a green sea anemone? No? Then do it vicariously through this weirdo (see video).

You have to love this stuff. And as a bonus, that guy is my housemate now…

The Encyclopedia of Life is a daunting project aimed at making key information about life on Earth easily and readily accessible (demonstration pages).  EOL has an incredible goal, to document life before it goes extinct.  Since the launch of the promotional site there has been little news on when the species pages will actually go live.  Until now.

Near the end of February, 2008 EOL will have 30,000 interactive pages live for the world to view.  Excited?  I sure am.

The RubyAMF blog was updated recently with information on RubyAMF support for Rails 2.0. So far only one major bug and two minor ones have been found. All three are being zapped as we speak.

• Use of render :amf in a controller
• Install script should modify initializers/mime_types.rb
• rubyamf_config.rb should go in initializers

The use of render :amf was the bug that my RAMF tutorial attempted to address. Tony Hillerson has committed a much more elegant fix so the tutorial will be updated once it becomes official.

Why? Because it rhymes.

We have noticed that science and technology lie at the center of a very large number of the policy issues facing our nation and the world – issues that profoundly affect our national and economic security as science and technology continue to transform our lives. No matter one’s political stripe, these issues pose important pragmatic policy challenges.

- sciencedebate2008.com

Recent scientific advancements have brought us to a time where our next president must be able to address moral questions with logical means.  The science debate should act as a vehicle to insure that our next leader will not allow illogical and pseudo science to persuade him or her in making decisions.

What is the logical thing to do after spending a whole week digging a 6ft deep, 18in wide ditch under a deck? Obviously it is to plan a snowshoeing trip on Saturday, a night at the bars, then a 12k run on Sunday. Ah, life is grand.

On a related note, anyone know how to jump start the brain after a long day of physically exhaustive work? I’ve tried carb overload, since the brain needs glucose to function, but that doesn’t seem to help. Caffeine? Rockstar?

Flexible Rails is a book written by Peter Armstrong that teaches the reader how to build RIAs with Flex 3 and Rails 2 by walking the reader through an in-depth tutorial. Armstrong has been very active in the RubyAMF community and has made some great contributions. His latest and greatest gift to us all is a complete chapter, from his book, titled Iteration 11: Refactoring to RubyAMF. You can download it as a pdf from his Manning Publication site.

Flexible Rails is available now through the Manning Early Access Program and will be available in print sometime January 2008.

Thanks Peter!