News and Views

I am having problems with both birds and bees.

First, the birds: My peaches are ripening on the tree in my back yard, and there are lots of bites and nibbles. The worst part is that birds will eat them at a greener state than I will, so they spoil them before they are ripe enough for me.

I put up a net over the tree, but birds, with their excellent eyesight, can find any little hole in the net to get in. Unfortunately, once they get in under the net they aren’t nearly as good at finding the hole again to get out. So each morning I get up to find 2-3 birds stuck inside the net, sometimes with feathers tangled up in the mesh. I have to raise up one side of the net and then chase them out. At least 2-3 birds a day don’t eat as many peaches as however many were getting to them before, but I’m selfish and want them all to myself. Little by little I’ll find and patch those holes.

You remember a couple of weeks ago that I had bees in my garage. I called a bee expert who came and judged that they were just scouting and would probably move on. I vacuumed them up and he fixed a few holes, and that was that.

Yesterday we noticed hundreds of bees again, near where they had been before, but in an area untouched by the bee man. The stucco wall extends out slightly from the foundation, and there are little holes on the bottom, presumably to let any water out that may get in. The bees were going in and out of one of those holes as if they lived there. So I set up the vacuum cleaner hose an inch or so away from the bee-hole and just let it run. It was fascinating to sit and watch as bee after bee got too close and disappeared with a “thwip”, sometimes several in a second. It didn’t take long (an hour, maybe) until there were very few bees left buzzing around outside. The inside of the vacuum had hundreds–maybe a thousand bees.

The beauty of the vacuum method of bee removal is that when a bee is stressed or injured, it secretes a pheromone that excites other bees and incites them to attack. But with the vacuum, the bee and any pheromones are immediately removed from the area before they know anything is amiss. The other bees never realize that anything is wrong, though I’m sure eventually they are bothered by all their sisters gone missing. They hive must become a lonely place, like an old Twilight Zone episode where all the people suddenly disappear from the earth.

I use Firefox to browse the internet, instead of Internet Explorer, of course. Here are a few other things I’ve found that improve my browsing experience.

1) Install Adblock Plus, and activate one of the subscriptions. This will get rid of most ads.

2) Install FlashBlock. This prevents Flash from playing until you click on it. Since most of the ads that get past Adblock Plus are Flash based, this pretty much removes all of them.

3) Even after you’ve blocked the ads and the Flash, sometimes animated GIFs will wiggle and move in a distracting way while you are trying to read a page. They’re not really ads, but they are still irritating; e.g. lots of people use animated GIFs for their avatars in forums. If you just hit the “ESC” key all animated GIFs on that page will cease to play.

4) If the text or image is too small, hold the control key down and roll the mouse wheel. If you don’t have a mouse wheel then “CTRL +” or “CTRL -” will also increase or decrease the font size in Firefox and most applications.

5) The middle mouse button will open a link in a new tab. I often go to a news headline page (like Google News) and middle click on several headlines, then go and read them at leisure. It’s easier than clicking a link, then going back to the headline page and clicking the next link. This is also a great technique for checking out several links from a Google search. The middle-click trick also opens bookmarks in a new tab.

6) An oldie, but some may not have heard: If you hold the control key while hitting enter after typing a URL in the address bar, Firefox will automatically add the “http://www.” on the beginning, and “.com” on the end. So just type “google”, then CTRL-Enter. SHIFT-Enter will add “.net” at the end instead, and CTRL-SHIFT-Enter will add “.org”, but those are less useful in everyday browsing.

What else?

It was just about 100 days ago that I found Apollo in the throes of a seizure. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with Valley Fever and put on twice-a-day doses of Fluconazole.

Initially his infection level was 32, severely infected. This week we were informed that his level is down to 2 — barely infected!

The vet wants to keep him on the drugs for another 90 days and then test again. If he’s clear, he can stop taking drugs and be called cured.

I think he deserves an A+ for his first 100 days!

We’ve had a swarm of bees move into the attic and garage. Gisele noticed them swarming around a small hole in the wall this afternoon, and by this evening (6:45) there are hundreds of them in the garage on the ceiling and walls. We can’t get to the cars.

I called a bee service in the afternoon and they said they would be here in the early evening. I just called and he said he was really busy; could he do it tomorrow? NO, Please!!!!

A few have made it into the house, but only 3 or 4. I stepped on one — it stung me!

I’ll update after he gets here — hopefully soon!

In case you missed my last comments on the previous blog, I bought a Kindle. It is my birthday present. It arrived on Friday.

I have mixed feelings about it. Mostly it is very nice. Books are easy to download and there is lots of content available (and quite a bit of free content too). The built-in, instant dictionary is very handy, as is the search feature. It’s light and very thin — almost too thin: If I rest my hands on top as I read in bed it is uncomfortable. But I think that’s probably a matter of adjusting.

I have some reservations. My major concern is with the screen contrast. It’s definitely not as good as black text on a white page. It’s more like very dark gray text on a very light gray background. Under good light it is quite easy to read. But in darker environments, where I would be able to read a printed book, it’s too hard to see.

The page-turn buttons are not quite where I would have put them either — my hands don’t naturally fall there while I’m reading. I might have preferred them on the top corners, but it’s not a big deal.

The built-in web browser is a joke, both because the connection is slow and the gray-scale display looses too much web content, but I guess it’s OK to have Google or Wikipedia available in a pinch.

I read in the bathtub last night, but that was scary. Dropping a normal book means at worst you might be out the cost of the book, and at best you might be able to read it after you dry it out. I doubt Amazon will refund me if I send it back filled with bubbles… :\

Anyway, I’ve got a month to decide if I want to keep it. I probably will.

Does anybody who reads my blog have a Kindle eBook reader?

It looks like it might be a great way to read books. The new version 2 that just came out is supposed to improve on most of the problems with the first one.

On the other hand, it’s very expensive. Though you can download books for about half the cost of a printed book, you would have to download a lot to make up for the cost of the reader.

It seems like it would be ideal for someone who traveled a lot; easer to bring one slim reader filled with 10 books than actually lugging 10 books along.

Or should I just download books to my Blackberry? The screen is much smaller and I don’t have access to Amazon’s huge library; that’s one problem with that idea.

My birthday is coming up next month; should I treat myself with this? Can anybody speak from personal experience?

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin.

It’s often mistakenly said that Darwin developed the theory of evolution. This is not accurate. In the mid-19th century it was widely discussed among many biologists that species seem to have developed from other species. The problem was that there was no known mechanism that could explain how this happens.

Darwin then came along and developed the theory of Natural Selection, a beautiful, comprehensive, and in retrospect obvious explanation. Of course! There is variation among any population. Those individuals who are better able to survive and reproduce will pass on their characteristics to their children, thereby increasing those successful characteristics. From such a simple, self-evident thesis comes the almost infinite variety of life.

Darwin didn’t know how variations came about, but he knew it must happen. It wasn’t until the 20th century that genes and mutations were discovered (though Mendel’s work pointed to genes much earlier), but his theory and the evidence predicted that they must exist. Most mutations are neutral, causing no significant changes in the individual. Many of the rest are harmful, but a few are beneficial. Those beneficial mutations are more likely to be preserved.

Evolution driven by natural selection is not “random”, as is often claimed: “You might just as well expect a jetliner to be produced by a tornado passing through a junkyard, as for a human being to arise from random chance!” It is not chance; it’s a slow, gradual process molded and directed at each step by the selection of the environment.

There are no serious biologists working in the world today who doubt evolution, or that natural selection is the main driving force behind it. To say that it’s “just a theory” means that all the evidence supports it and that it is the best known explanation. You might just as well say that the theory of Gravitation is “just a theory”, or the sun-centered solar system is “just a theory”. All known evidence supports the theory, and those who oppose it do so from religious or philosophical grounds, not factual.

So Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin, and thanks. Eventually someone else would have put it together as you did, but it might have taken a lot longer, and delayed the progress of the biological sciences.

The last test results on Apollo came back positive for Valley Fever. In fact she said the test came back strongly positive, so it’s fairly serious.

Dogs in the Southwest get Valley Fever just like humans do, and as in humans usually just infects the lungs. But in some cases it will break out and infect other parts of their bodies. When it infects the brain it can cause seizures.

With treatment the prognosis is good, but he will be on expensive anti-fungal medication for at least a year and a half, and possibly the rest of his life.

I’m not sure if this is better than epilepsy, but at least there is a treatment.

Apollo has epilepsy, or at least appears to have the dog version.

I was on my computer when I heard a thumping sound outside. I found Apollo stretched out on the ground on his side, with his front and rear legs swinging around like he was trying to run. His hind legs kept hitting some roof tiles I had piled up there, and that is what I had heard. He didn’t respond to me at first, but within a minute or so he got shakily to his feet, though he kept falling when he tried to walk.

I got him to the vet within 5 minutes, and by that time he was already steadier on his feet, but salivating and pacing around agitatedly.

The vet ran some blood tests looking for possible causes, and most of them have come back negative. We’re still waiting for the Valley Fever and Tick Fever tests to come back, but she said that 90% probability it was epilepsy, or the dog version of it. Apparently it is not uncommon, especially in Siberian Huskies, and this case showed the classic symptoms.

If it happens more than once a month then we will have to put him on anti-convulsants. Less than that, and we just try to keep him from harming himself or others when he seizes, and live with it.

It was a scary sight, seeing him on the ground like that. The first thought that went through my mind was that he had got into some insecticide or anti-freeze, or that someone had poisoned him. It was a great relief when he seemed to recover so quickly.

I’ll post an update if either of the final tests come out positive, but otherwise assume it is just a genetic condition.

For several years, every Monday Gisele has driven to Scottsdale for a small advanced French class that met in the home of one of the students, Angela Morley. Gisele mentioned to me that Angela, an elderly lady, was a composer and had won some awards.

Angela died last Monday, and I looked into her past a little bit. It turns out that the awards she had received were 11 Emmy nominations, 3 Emmy awards and 2 Oscar Nominations. It turns out she collaborated with John Williams on the score for several movies, including ET, Home Alone, Star Wars, Superman, The Empire Strikes Back and Schindler’s List. She wrote the score for the animated movie Watership Down. She wrote the scores for several TV shows, including Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Hotel, Cagney and Lacy, Wonder Woman and others. She wrote many arrangements for Julie Andrews, Mel Torme, Placido Domingo and others. She arranged music that Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma played at the 2001 Academy Awards ceremony.

There is a small memorial service on Saturday for family and close friends that Gisele has been invited to. Only after her death did Gisele realize that her friend and classmate had lived such a productive and illustrious life.