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Notebook Entries, Oct. 2003

Notebook entry, October 24, 2003

An interesting article in The New York Times, online edition on Oct. 21, 2003: "New Clue on Which Came First, Tools or Better Diets. by John Noble Wilford.

So Which came first? Did stone tools led to more met in our pre ancestral diet or did more amounts of meat in our ancestor's diet lead to the use of tools? As described in the latest issue of The Journal of Human Evolution, a "team of scientists has uncovered the earliest known stone tools to be found mixed with fragments of fossilized animal bones. The scientists think the material, almost 2.6 million years old, is the strongest evidence yet that the primal technology was used to butcher animal carcasses for meat and marrow." The article quotes Dr. Sileshi Semaw, the leader of the team: "I believe the use of stone tools came first and the larger brain came later with a more substantial meat diet."

The findings further strengthen my theory that I argue for in my online book, Man In The Mist , November 2000, I argued that our ancestors merely lucked out and "found" carcasses of animals that were unfortunately run over in stampedes of early hordes of four-footed animals in transit (stampeded, perhaps, by our early ancestors making noises or throwing stones). The pre-discovery of meat and how to remove it from the bone, and the bone marrow within, creates the "problem" of how to remove it from the bone, hence the "solution" of a sharp stone.

Notebook entry, October 17th, 2003

I truly apologize to regular readers for not keeping up my notebook as regularly as I should....but, then, what's regular about someone's notebook? Does it have a time schedule? A purpose? Or should it just happen when the mood, time, and method strikes?

I just made my first television appearance on a local public television station on Oct. 15th. It came as quite a surprise and totally took all my energies to prepare. Especially since the subject was slave reparations and not evolution. The three other panelists were very polished and I was the overly quiet one.

More later.

Notebook entry, October 1, 2003

I have to report the death of a friend. My Hewlett Packard Jordana 820 notebook. It has been at my side for over five years. I used it to write Man In The Mist several years ago. It did not have a hard drive, and as a result, it was very light weight. Because of the light weight, I use it at work out on the route. I would balance the Jordana on my left knee and place my two palms on each side of the outer edges of the keyboard. It's keyboard was short enough for me to reach all the keys without lifting my palms from the edges from the notebook, thus keeping the notebook in place.

It just died from overuse. Here's a close up of right hinge and you'll see why it gave up the ghost. It will be greatly missed.