In 2006, I published a new idea that could answer that question and more: the ‘snake detection theory’. I hypothesised that when large-gaped constricting snakes appeared about 100 million years ago and began eating mammals, their predatory behaviour favoured the evolution of changes in the vision of one kind of prey, the lineage that was to become primates. In other words, the ability to see immobile predatory snakes before getting too close became a highly beneficial trait for them to have and pass on to their descendants. Then, about 60 million years ago, venomous snakes appeared in Africa or Asia, adding more pressure on primates to detect and avoid them. This has also had repercussions on their visual systems.
Interesting read on how coexisting with snakes forced the improvement of our eyesight.
Also learned a new word from this article; ophiophobia – the abnormal fear of snakes. I don't understand why Wikipedia labels it as an “abnormal” fear of snakes. Is it normal to not fear snakes?
Dino Bansigan is concerned about writing “more for myself and less to an audience” but I find myself wondering why those must be seen as mutually exclusive. Is it not possible to write for oneself yet to an audience?
For some reason, I cannot wrap my head around the concept of writing for myself, but at the same time writing to an audience. I feel like if I can just look at it from a different angle though, I would figure it out. The closest thing I can think of, is writing for myself but writing in such a way that the content is palatable to readers. But then, wouldn't I be writing to an audience?
I'm using the pronoun “we”, instead of “I” when I'm writing a post.
I'm trying to add context to my post, or trying to explain something in my post, which would not have been necessary had I been the only intended audience. For example, trying to explain or justify why I made a specific decision is a hint that I'm writing to an audience other than myself.
I'm writing in a way as to encourage comments from readers. – I don't really do this on posts on this online journal, but more so on posts on my dev blog.
If I keep those listed cues in mind, I should be able to write more for myself and less to an audience.
After I started hiding the view counts on my posts, I noticed that I sort of rebounded by furiously checking my site's stats instead. I was checking my site's stats multiple times during the day. Sometimes multiple times in the same hour. I don't think that's a healthy habit. So this experiment is all about disabling the Stats link and seeing what the results will be. I'll let this run for at least 2 weeks, maybe a month at most.
Wrapping this up just a week into the experiment. The results were so good that I don't feel like I need to wait 1 whole month for the experiment to finish. After hiding the view count on my posts, my urge to check view counts started decreasing significantly. A few days after hiding the view count, the compulsive behavior to check views have gone away.
The incident between R Martin and SoftComplex teaches us a powerful lesson. No company, no matter how big or small, should have the kind of power, that kind of control over something you paid for. Something that you own. At least, that you think you own.
More and more companies have that kind of sway over their wares, though. We've placed too much of the power in the hands of manufacturers and we're at their mercy. That's especially true with so-called Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
As mentioned in a previous post, I was planning to deactivate my public Instagram account. Well it's done. Yay!
I was able to download all my data from Instagram before deactivating it. It was easier than I thought it would be. You can put in a request to download all your data from the Settings –> Privacy section. It might take awhile for Instagram to come back with a link to download your data. Mine didn't take that long as I didn't have that many posts. Total size for my data was around 220 MB.
These are the EQ settings that I use most often when I'm listening to music at work. I have an Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphone connected to a Creative SoundBlaster E1 external amp/sound card, which is then connected to my work PC via USB port. With these settings the ATH-M50 comes alive! There is ample strong clean bass, while the clarity of the mids and highs are still maintained.
