July 2008 Archives

The process is normally:

1.  Transfer the pictures from the camera to the computer
2.  Divide the pictures into two piles, Jasmine and Alyssa
3.  Sort the files by the date the picture was taken and put files into a folder with that date
4.  Login to the website as Alyssa or Jasmine
     A.  Select a photo
     B.  Think of a title
     C.  Think of a caption
     D.  Adjust the date/time of the post to when it was taken

Tonight, it was all those steps above and more
1.  I had to combine the pictures from 4 different cameras
    A.  Our camera
    B.  Peg's camera
    C.  Paula's camera
    D.  Dad's camera
2. The date on Peg's camera is wrong so I had to write code to fix all her files
    A.  This requires modifying the meta data inside the files them self - something I learned last night
3.  There were far too many photos to do the sorting by hand, so I wrote code to do that too
     Divide the pictures into Jasmine/Alyssa then run the code which will automatically:
     A.  Determine the date the picture was taken
     B.  If a folder with the year of the picture does not exist, create it
     C.  If a folder with the month of the picture does not exist, create it
     D.  If a folder with the day of the picture does not exist, create it
     E.  Move the picture into the folder by year_month_day
4.  In addition to just photos, I also had a number of blog entries to catch up on

I started at around 6:30PM preparing the photos.   It is now 1:50 AM and I am not  done.  I almost all of Jasmine's July photos left to sift through.

Tonight, I am updating the website.  So far, I have only prepared pictures for uploading and posted blog entries, but it is a start.  I also saw that I had made notes about a conversation that I had with a co-worker at lunch on evolution.  We often have interesting conversations on a wide variety of topics, but I felt like writing this down.

For the record, I am a Christian who happens to believe in evolution.

Musing 1:  Evolution isn't as random as Darwin would lead you to believe.

So my friend, let's call him M., happens to be Jewish.  He too believes in evolution but believes that it is more focused than not.  He said something along the lines of "for instance, my friend made this point that if mutations were purely random there would be more evidence of failures in the fossil record".  This was intended to imply that there were far fewer mutations that resulted in dying than in advancing.

I too believe that evolution isn't truly random, I found too many holes in this argument.

1. Given the entirety of all species that have ever lived, and how few fossils there are - doesn't it make statistical sense that you are more likely to find fossils of mutations that allowed a species to live long enough to have the quantities to fossilize in the first place
2.  I would imagine that most mutations that could have resulted in an individual of a species dying wouldn't be detectable in the fossil anyway (imprints of the external body and/or bones).  If it was an enzyme or what not - there would be nothing there.
3.  It is guesswork trying to figure out what environment changes might have happened at the same time a fossil was created.  How would we know mutation X is what killed the individual without knowing the environment at the time?
There were a lot more points I made, but these were the ones that seemed most compelling.

Musing 1:  Homosexuality in animals fits evolution

I had always been bothered that homosexuality in animals didn't seem to fit the evolution model.  In case you didn't know, it is very widespread in the animal kingdom.  It should die out as there isn't an opportunity to pass the genes on to the next generation.  During my conversation with M., it dawned on me that homosexuality may actually be some survival benefit to the species.  Consider a situation with limited resources and over population.  Perhaps limiting the next generation when environmental factors indicated it was necessary by producing homosexual offspring might make sense.  Now, this is just a WAG (wild ass guess) and is not based in anything scientific.  In other words, the entire species would have the genetic potential to be homosexual and then some factor would dictate if an individual expressed that trait.  PH balance in the water, temperature at conception, etc.

Whatever - it was interesting to me.

Jean and I got a few hours out without the kids tonight.  We left the girls with Marcie and Peggy and went with Robin and David to a CCR cover band.  The concert was held at an open air amphitheater in Brownville Jct. Maine.  This was quite amazing.  The place was The Junction and the band was The Bayou Boys