History is the source code of the future

A door opens and it is five million years later

Israeli scientists said on Wednesday they had discovered a prehistoric ecosystem dating back millions of years.

The discovery was made in a cave near the central Israeli city of Ramle during rock drilling at a quarry. Scientists were called in and soon found eight previously unknown species of crustaceans and invertebrates similar to scorpions.

This is one of those rare events where a real doorway to the ecological conditions of a specific place have been preserved, possibly intact, for longer than humans have been around. Extraordinary and, in a metaphysical sense alread a past fading away as it is explored. Knowing our world means knowing the past, because direct experience has to be processed into knowledge, which may not happen, as in this case, for eons.

Technorati Tags: history, ecology

English satire, ugly and funny

Pfft: Satirical Pinpricks Deflating Pomposity and Power - New York Times:

Satirical London, an exhibition at the Museum of London show, as the Times says that "the message is clear: every age gets the satire it deserves."

Technorati Tags: history, press, publishing