Wednesday, February 04, 2004

When I showed up at Bill's office today, someone was already in the waiting room with Bill's light on. I asked the obvious, "Are you here to see Bill?" And her immediate response was, "yes, it's Monday, 1pm, right? No, it's Tuesday. I've done this before. I'm a freelance writer. Oh my God, don't tell Bill I was here. No it is Tuesday. 1pm." With that, I felt like saying, "No, you go. You take the appointment." And then I realized that Bill and I switched times. She told me she wouldn't tell Bill I'd come. But I wanted to confirm my new appointment. I may ask Bill if I can get a discount or something. I guess surface neuroses aren't always indicative of foundation-shaking issues, but I feel generally pretty healthy and normal and stable. Versus much of the population. But more so after that brief encounter. 1:49:22 AM

I picked up my copy of Chimpanzee Politics tonight, and read the whole thing in one sitting. Wow. My dream application, I just realized tonight, would be an open-source animal census program, allowing registered users from accross the globe to record species sitings. You'd need to have some verification process, and some auditing process, but what better way to implement a massively distributed solution, start getting excellent baseline statistics on a variety of species, while simultaneously generating interest  in conservation. I was thinking of the basic concept applied to parsing data on animal behavior. You could have Web cams set up in exhibits and actually employ site viewers in codifying some behavior. Imagine a world wide audience of people checking in on the great apes in the Fragile Forest, clicking when they observe grooming behaviors between specific apes. Things could get complicated, with individuals passing a set of tests to be involved, or only classrooms involved with curriculum helping out, or you could rely upon the aggregate data simply augmenting the on-site data. We could create something really, really addictive - where people would observe social behaviors and make predictions about what shape the group will take. My mind spins. 1:37:01 AM