(no subject)

[weaktwos]

I'm playing with my ipod and my new Altec Lansing InMotion speakers expressly for the iPod. They are quite delightful. And they can get reasonably loud. I'm at work, however, so I'm not listening to it too loudly. I need to get books on tape on this beotch and I can "read" while at work. ;-)

I'm listening to the Breaking of the Fellowship from the Lord of the Rings Soundtrack. It clutches at my heartstrings. *sniff* I love that series, I do, I do!

I am moth. It is flame.

Today was a bit of a pisser, work wise. I got things done, but I have more to do. I'll be working tomorrow morning before my drum lesson.

Tonight's first stop: the gym. The second stop will be to take a friend out for dinner to celebrate her birthday. I'm taking her to the Mandarin. It's a great chinese restaurant right next to Whole Foods here in town. I'll be rolling off my diet wagon for a night. It shouldn't be too bad, since I'll have mostly veggies and meat. However, I'm a-hankerin' for their crab wontons.

Remember that intra-cartoon nutritional cartoon back when we (I) were(was) kids(a kid)? Was that a little cowboy cell of our bodies that ran around having a hankerin' for a hunk of cheese and extolling the virtues of protein? I loved those bits.

Comments

[imlac.livejournal.com]

"I am moth. It is flame."

This is one of my favorite misconceptions. Moths do NOT gravitate towards flames. They evolved to use the sun/moon as a navagational tool. They think the light is the sun/moon and is thus in a fixed place. They orient themselves to fly in a straight line using the light as an anchor.

They're trying to fly AWAY from the light, but they get confused because they don't expect it to move relative to them. Which makes the irony of the misconception just beautiful.

[weaktwos.livejournal.com]

Interesting. So, I suppose the rate of calamity they experience by charging into a bug light/flame-related object is not frequent enough to make them evolve to finding another anchor, or they just haven't evolved yet?

My Spoon is too big!

[imlac.livejournal.com]

Well artificial light has only been around such as it is for a few hundred years now, and I imagine that candles don't have quite the same effect, so that's only since the dawn of lightbulbs that this phenomena has taken place. I'm pretty sure moths are a fairly old genus/phylum/whatever, and despite their high rate of reproduction it would still take them several thousands of years at least before any adaptation occured.

[weaktwos.livejournal.com]

Well, depending upon the severity of the situation, evolution can happen much faster. The famous example of moths in an industrial city (I think it was some place in England) changing color within a generation because moths that were darker could hide easier from their predators. Perhaps there just aren't enough light related deaths among moths such that there's an increased frequency of mating with moths who have no sense of direction.

[imlac.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the peppered moth. There's actually some controversy over that case, and not just from the lunatic creation-scientists. I don't understand the whole scenario, but as far as I can tell, it's uncertain if that was really a result of evolution. If you google 'peppered moth evolution' and you sort through the obviouslly non-scientific religiously motiveated sites, you can find some interesting stuff, such as this page: http://www.arn.org/docs/wells/jw_pepmoth.htm

[bleujenna.livejournal.com]

I love those soundtracks. I just got a set for my birthday and was listening to them yesterday at work, they are terrific. I was walking around bothering punkroxie saying "these are so good, I had no idea these were so good..."

I also am a fan of books on CD at work - the library has a decent selection (and they're free) :)