Encyclopedia of Life

Back in May last year, I posted an item on the proposed Encyclopedia of Life.  I was interested to hear that the first 30,000 species were to be launched yesterday.  Unfortuately, the servers hosting the site couldn’t cope and it was down on the first day.  The entries are all written by scientists but it will eventually take contributions from the public – like wikipedia.  So despite my efforts I still haven’t managed to see the site as it is still down though most reports say this is a temporary problem – see if you are more successful than I have been www.eol.org.

Honeymoon at Emau Hill

I’ve just found a brilliant blog from a couple from America who are having the honeymoon to beat all honeymoons.  Steve and Christy McCrosky married in California in June last year and have since been travelling all over Europe, Africa, South East Asia and Fiji.  They planned to be away for seven months so must be nearing the end shortly.  They have an amazing photo site here.  The reason I found it was they spent part of their time camping at Emau Hill and talking to Steve and Pia.  The camp site sounds great – it wasn’t finished when I was there but the fully erect and equipped tents sound good.  Have a read for yourself here.  And yes Steve and Pia are some pretty amazing people.  Oh and congratulations Steve and Christy  I’ve added your blog to the blogroll on here.

EQ.Connect

I’ve just discovered this site – yes yes another social networking site but with a difference. EQ connect is a network for those who are ‘passionate about ecological and economic sustainability – and music’. It already has music videos and documentaries embedded and there are scheduled live shows – though they will probably be at Oregon time so in the middle of the night in the UK.

It’s based on the Ning networking facility, something that is used extensively in education circles but they’ve really customised it. It has far more functionality than Facebook and as far as I can see no-one has yet tried to send me a tin of cat food, or Zombie bite or asked me to see which Teletubby I resemble. I have all of 3 friends on there so far, my pal Kev who found it in the first place, 1giantleap who have their own network and of course the founder of the network – quelle surprise. So if you care to join me I’m LisaValentine and my homepage is here.

Further news – Jamie and Duncan who did the first 1GiantLeap project have posted that they have been scheduled on Channel 4 television from 23 April for 7 weeks.  The new project is called ‘What About Me?’ and it’s about how insane we all are, needy in relationships, insatiable in desire, wounded by birth, avoiding all pain with happy pills, and unable to stop thinking.  And of course next Friday (29 Feb) is One Giant Leap Day.

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

The Guardian Unlimited has posted a piece about NASA intending to beam a Beatles song into space next week.  The song is ‘Across the Universe’ and is 40 years old.  The Guardian asked for alternatives that might have been more apt, instructive or just fun.  Suggestions included  the title of this post by The Carpenters, Starman by David Bowie , The Planets Suite (though someone thought that too parochial!), Beathoven’s Ode to Joy, or even Britney’s Toxic (played at the end of the Earth – that’s for the Dr Who fans;-).  My favourite suggestion would be Spem in Allium by Thomas Tallis – quite an astonishingly complex piece of choral music.  It was written in the 16th century and has 40 different vocal parts.  Go on give it a listen here.