I’m way behind on email, my reading list, etc. So I only just now saw this video of my wife Emily talking about the Wildlife Rehab Clinic, which aired on a local TV station recently. I guess that makes her famous. 
She serves as a volunteer, caring for the animals and as the President of the clinic, and we both serve on the clinic’s board of directors. For more info on the clinic, please visit http://www.wild-life-rehab.com/ or send me an email.
Archive for the ‘Ecology’ Category
Emily at WRC on TV
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011Slow Motion Video of Owl
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011http://www.dogwork.com/owfo8/ is a slow motion video of an owl flying at the camera, slowing, and grabbing hold of something. (It may be landing – I can’t tell for sure – but it doesn’t look like a landing to me.) Basically awesome.
Rational Basis for Altruism
Tuesday, September 13th, 2011I’ve sent this to a number of people individually… So it’s about time I just posted a link to http://www.radiolab.org/2010/dec/14/one-good-deed-deserves-another/ and a firm recommendation that you listen. It’s a Radiolab story about altruism and evolution, rational good behavior, etc. I’m especially fond of the bit about the prisoner’s dilemma simulation, in which both Jesus and Lucifer are defeated by Tit-for-Tat.
Ideologically Derived Facts
Friday, August 20th, 2010There’s a great post today on a statistics blog I read, entitled Some things are just really hard to believe: more on choosing your facts. You should read this for yourself, but from my preconceived anti-ideological worldview the truth of it is almost self-evident. Here’s an excerpt:
Of course, it makes sense that people with different judgment of the facts would have different views on policies: if you think carbon dioxide doesn’t cause substantial global warming, you’ll be on the opposite side of the global warming debate from someone who thinks it does. But often the causality runs the other way: instead of choosing a policy that matches the facts, people choose to believe the facts that back up their values-driven policies. The issue about Obama’s birth country is an extreme example: it’s clear that people did not first decide whether Obama was born in the U.S., and then decide whether to vote Republican or Democratic. They are choosing their fact based on their values, not the other way around. Perhaps it is helpful to think of people as having an inappropriate prior distribution that makes them more likely to believe things that are aligned with their desires.
Eagles of Hornby Island
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010My wife just sent me a link to a webcam, watching over an eagle’s nest. Within the nest is at least one baby eagle, which you can hear via audio. It’s beautiful and awesome (while also being a bit boring… or perhaps, peaceful is a better word).
I’ve embedded the webcam here, but I’d encourage you to visit the actual website at http://www.hornbyeagles.com/webcam.htm where you can learn more, find links to discussion, etc.
