Mutant starling?

Starlings are busy, noisy birds that like to flock together and don’t mind being aroud people. We see a lot of them in the city. They are dark with a speckled look.

The other day, I spied one that was partly white. I wasn’t sure what kind of bird it was, but it was the shape of a starling, acted like a starling, and kept with a flock of starlings and pigeons.

I managed to “zoom in” on it before it flew away. Looking at the picture, I’m more convinced that it was a starling: the feathers that do have pigment look like starling feathers.

If anyone wants to look for it, the bird was at Sherbourne and Shuter, one block up from Sherbourne and Queen.

Louisiana land loss

Coastal erosion is a fact of life in Louisiana, perhaps because of better flood control. The Mississipi is not carrying as much silt to its mouth. I attended a presentation this morning about coastal restoration. The speaker, Mr. Milling, kindly sent a copy of this map. It was prepared by the U.S. Geological Service, so it’s in the public domain. The red areas are land that has been eroded away from Louisiana since 1932–which was probably the first time the U.S. had an accurate map–and predicted up to 2050.

LOLcats: Monorail Cat is offline

This is about what I feel like tonight:

I’m home from the Project Management & Technical Communication Summit in New Orleans. All the cats are in and accounted for. The kittens are visibly bigger. I’m going to get some rest.

Cephalopod art

I’ve been taking swimming lessons at the Innes Community Centre in Toronto. The pool and the corridor outside the changerooms are decorated with exuberant marine pictures. Here’s the squid:

New Orleans giant crocodile hoax

There were e-mail rumours of a 21-foot (6.3-m) crocodile found swimming in the streets “post-Katrina.” However, hoaxslayer.com reports that the photo in question was a Nile crocodile killed two years earlier in the Republic of the Congo. It was about 16 feet long (5 metres), which is adult size. Here it is draped in a truck bed.

Tropical Storm Noel over Hispaniola

Tropical storm Noel hovers over Hispaniola, dumping rain and more rain.

Adobe Robo Help 7 and Captivate

Adobe RoboHelp 7 was released at about 7:00 a.m. yesterday. And today I’m taking a hands-on workshop on creating Multimedia user assistance files with RoboHelp 7 plus Captivate 3 to include short “movies” to illustrate the topics. Captivate enables you to capture a series of onscreen motions. It’s neat!

UPDATE: Here’s a link to a reviewer’s guide to RoboHelp 7, in PDF

Invention of a disease

Not discovery—invention.

Bridgepoint Health is a chronic-care hospital in Toronto that used to have the much more euphonious (and meaningful) name Riverdale Hospital. It sits on a bluff above the Don River’s ravine, and is thus seen every day by the tens of thousands of motorists using the Don Valley Parkway.

The hospital is also adjacent to (and indeed has designs on) Riverdale Park. As I was running through the park yesterday I noticed that Bridgepoint has a huge banner advertising (is that the right word?) a “new disease”, neurodiabesity.

Huh?

When I got home I googled neurodiabesity. I found no definition, only its being listed as one of several “new” complex diseases under attack by the brave physicians of Bridgepoint Health—and how much money that battle will take.

So, is this really a new disease, or just an opportunity for a hospital seeking a niche to distinguish itself: define a new disease, and promote oneself as that disease’s enemy-in-chief?

They selected teosinte…and got corn

Quintessence of Dust: They selected teosinte…and got corn. Excellent!

Someone once pointed out that Eurasia got emmer, which took perhaps 100 years of selective breeding to turn into wheat, and the horse; while the Americas got teosinte, which took 1000 years of selective breeding to turn into corn, and the llama. Progress in corn development is followed in part through the images of corn on pottery.

The same source said that teosinte was changed into corn by a change in timing of the development of the ear. And as we all know, changes in timing or enabling/disbling of a feature can cause huge changes in the resulting organism.

In New Orleans!

I slept in, missed the Community Service day, but walked “all over” the French Quarter for three hours, looking at lots of nice three-storey houses with iron-railed balconies. I had some crackers in the morning, then wandered around for almost three hours before finding the Cafe du Monde and its famous French beignets - a sort of puffy pillow of eggy pastry, deep-fried and then whisked to your table. Finally, a reason for powdered sugar! It keeps the beignets warm. Back at the hotel (Canal & Bourbon), I went to the conference welcoming buffet - a good thing, too, I was hungry.

Then a group of us went out again - I wanted a dark ale and they were after oysters. We waited in line for half an hour, then got into one oyster place where we could stand by the bar watching patient fellows shuck live oysters for our pleasure. I slipped away, ogling the costumes in the street — it’s the Saturday before Halowe’en. The streets are narrow - buld before cars were thought of, they’re at most two lanes wide. One of the tourist attractions is a tour by mule-drawn open carriage. But I resisted temptation — it’s $60. So I’ve had lots of fresh air today.

Time for touring

I reached the conference hotel after 02:30 local time, which was 03:30 my time. There were still partiers on the street and the band at the hotel restaurant was still going strong. The hotel’s sleep kit included a night mask and earplugs. But I gave myself permission to ignore the 06:30 alarm. I’m not working at Habitat for Humanity in the Musicians’ Village today. I might stagger over there now if I locate it, but I’m more likely to go for a walk. Two people have recommended Cafe du Monde to me for its beignets and cafe au lait. And I’m only three miles (5 km) south of Lake Pontchartrain, which I know only from folk songs. The hotel’s Web site listed a hundred things to see and do within 1.3 miles (2 km). Here is a link to New Orleans maps.

I experimented with the “old photo” sepia tint when I took a picture of the building fronts on Canal Street.

On the road again!

I’ll be travelling tonight, spending four days in New Orleans for the Advanced Technical Communication and Project Management conference, and then travelling again Tuesday night. So posting might be sporadic.

New Orleans is on the south side of the large Lake Pontchartrain. The Mississippi River winds through the city, and downstream the river spreads into an elaborate delta.

I’m planning to spend Saturday working at a Habitat for Humanity. I found a relevant blog: Rebuild New Orleans.

I’ll get back to my client just in time to see the results of the IT department’s pumpkin-carving contest. I’m always amazed at people’s ingenuity, and I’ve volunteered to take photographs.

Scientist withdraws 1955 paper

Homer Jacobson, 84, has withdrawn a scientific paper that was published in 1955 about the possible origins of life.

The retraction came about when, on a whim, Dr. Jacobson ran a search for his name on Google…. He found many entries relating to his work on compounds called polymers; on information theory, a branch of mathematics involving statistics and probability; and other subjects. But others were for creationist sites that have taken up his 1955 paper as scientific support for their views.

He states that amino acids would not form from chemicals just sitting around. He failed to point out, it seems, that that’s what one might expect and that it would be different if there were a source of energy such as lightning or even sunlight. Creationists have gleefully pounced on this incomplete statement to invoke the need for supernatural intervention. Noting his errors, Dr. Jacobson has withdrawn the paper so that it can not properly be cited. That’s the honest, and scientific, thing to do.

California fires and risk assessment

Will it happen here? Why live in a fire zone? As a visitor, I see the houses pushed into dry scrubland with their flammable eucalyptus trees and shudder inwardly. Expensive water piped from the Colorado River (and leaving Mexico only a muddy trickle) is used to water every boulevard for lush greenery, sometimes a ground cover of 20-cm high succulents known as “ice plants.” It’s a fire retardant, say the inhabitants.

Are you more likely to get mugged or run over? Which do you worry about? In Toronto, about sixty people a year are murdered. That makes headlines and there’s great indignation. About sixty pedestrians a year are killed by cars. Somehow there’s no indignation about the latter. Instead, there’s a grumble about the one or two cyclists killed by cars–even though every day I see cyclists doing risky, unpredictable manouevers such as riding on and off sidewalks and pushing to the right of cars turning right. How on earth do we estimate what’s dangerous?

LavaCon and PMI GNO 2007 Professional Development Summit

I’m going to New Orleans! Any science bloggers there? On Saturday, I’m taking the option of helping the community, at a Habitat for Humanity site or elsewhere.

LavaCon® is partnering with the Project Management Institute® Greater New Orleans Chapter to co-host a Professional Development Summit in New Orleans, October 27–30, 2007.

The fifth annual LavaCon will present proven best practices in the fields of technical communication and technical communication management, including strategies for choosing technology platforms, migrating to XML and content management, reducing training and translation costs, and more.

The www.lavacon.org site is currently down, proving that even project managers have real life happen to them. If you’re interested, run a search on the Web site and then look at cached pages, or call 1-866-302-5774, ext 201.

Update: the link is working again.