History Channel: Armageddon Exploring the Doomsday Myth

I recently watched the History Channel video Armageddon Exploring the Doomsday Myth. It is two DVD's containing four programs that originally aired on the History Channel; Doomsday 2012: The End of Days, Mayan Doomsday Prophecy, Doomsday Tech, and More Doomsday Tech. I do not frequently watch History Channel programs because I do not have cable/satellite. If the programs contained in this collection were the only programs that I have watched on that channel, I would not want to.

The first program is not very informative and is extremely repetitive, there is maybe 15 minutes of actual discussion were you to remove all the repetition. It's also the worst of the four programs by far, the information given is one sided and not all that accurate. For example the internet-based prophetic software program is a type of search engine and the more people mention 2012 and doomsday on the internet the more the program is going to spit that out.

The second program was better than the first, it actually did tell somethings about the Mayans. Really the Mayan calendar is pretty interesting and it is very accurate. The program though mentions a lot of things that really don't make all that much sense. It claims that the Mayan calendar (one of them since the Mayans used three interlocking calendars) predicted specific events such as the American Civil War, the assassination of Lincoln, the social upheaval of the 60's, World War 2, etc. which the first thing that I wonder is why would it predict things that really have no link to the Mayan's or even the area in which the Mayan's lived. Sure most of those were big events in US history but there are many events as big or bigger happening elsewhere in the world.

Look at the wikipedia article on the 2012 phenomenon or type 2012 Doomsday on google and you'll get more information then you'd get from either of those programs (and much quicker).

The third and fourth programs are part of a series called Modern Marvels and were much better than the first two programs. They make mention of Nuclear war, cyber terror, genetic engineering, nanobots, etc. Talks about how technology is a double edged sword that can be used both for good and for ill. How the advances of technology has made it so that an individual can have the destructive power of a nation one hundred years ago. Makes mention of global warming and dwindling supplies (the amount of oil is limited). Does have some interesting bits of information but plays up some things more dangerous than they are. For example, the gray goo scenario in which nanotechnology goes amuck and consumes everything. I just can't see that happening. Where would the nanotech acquire the energy to do so and how would it fair against microbes and such that have been evolving for ages. Though many of the threats listed do have merit. Pandemic's very real threats. Genetic engineering of food, while I don't really see this as large of a threat as portrayed in the video, I do think it needs to be studied more. I don't like that everybody is basically the guinea pig for this. There has been problems for example allergies to the modified foods.

Digital Transition

As most people in the United States know, last week was the day in which most analog television signals stopped being broadcast, switching to digital (a few local ones in some places still are broadcasting in analog). I'm between not caring and really dislike that this has happened. The reason I don't care is because I watch very little television (I do not have cable or satellite), preferring to watch things on dvd/the computer. I do not even know most of the shows that are on television and the ones I do know about I mostly don't want to watch (if asked what shows were on I'd have no idea). I have had the required adapter for awhile know though (ready before the February date that was pushed back).

There are quite a few reasons as to why I dislike it though:
1. Have to acquire a new device to make televisions, which have worked for decades, continue to function the way they were created to.
2. Having multiple televisions requires the purchase of several of these devices.
3. The box has to be plugged in which means more electricity is being used.
4. Old televisions which still worked but had no antenna/internal antenna and/or many of the portable televisions are now just garbage (I threw away an old black and white still working television because there is no way to get it to work).
5. No place near me recycles televisions for free, computers and computer parts they do, televisions they charge you.
6. Four to five second delay changing channels, I like to flip through channels when I do watch television, this is now more annoying.
7. Lost a channel, signal too weak. Problem was this was the best channel on the tv, PBS, and really there is no reason for this, I'm less than two miles from the antenna broadcasting the signal. It's not completely gone, just most of the time it seems.
8. Have and still use a VCR, recording programs, specifically setting it to record programs on multiple channels, is now very difficult/impossible depending on what and how you wanted to record it.
9. Many people have trouble setting up and/or using the new box's particularly old people.
10. Some times acts likes a broken/scratched DVD, i.e. digital distortion, picture freezing and pixelation.

Local News

I dislike watching the news for a lot of reasons, the biggest being it is pretty depressing. Hearing about a shoot out, that jobs are so scarce that more than 800 people applied for one janitorial position, that the city plans on buying thousands of boarded up houses to tear them down, that many churches are being closed, that even though nationally there might be a shortage of nurses locally there isn't, that the hospitals are having a hiring freeze and are thinking about offering early retirement and lay offs, etc.

I rarely watch local news anymore preferring to get the news from the internet. Here are some reasons I prefer internet news to televised news:

* The televised news spends a considerable amount of time talking about sports and entertainment, which I am not interested in. If I was I would watch programs devoted to them.
* It takes less time to read the news on the internet than to watch it and the advertised news item is usually put near the end of the broadcast.
* The channels have a tendency to copy stories from one another. For example, I saw a news story about how dirty hotel rooms are on four different channels. -For those wondering, they are very dirty with things like using window cleaner to clean drinking cups, only changing large comforters if they are visibly dirty, and a large number of germs everywhere.
* They do not provide enough contextual data (though this is an annoyance I have with internet news as well). The news will give information of the nature, the budget for something was cut by xx amount of dollars, but they do not tell you if that amount is a large percent or if it will make a difference. If they use percents, they'll say something like there was a 50% increase. Is that a large increase, beyond expected? Will that make a difference? Was a 300% increase needed for the business to remain solvent? et cetra
* The local news treat things that are of little danger as if they were massively dangerous to try and scare you/draw you in.
* The news does not provide enough follow through, no where near enough. Occasionally there will be an interesting or important story and then not return to it with updates or even tell where additional information on it could be found (the internet does this as well but more often than televised news will also provide a link to further information).
* The news is biased, particularly local news. They pick and chose what to tell. One example being protests. They recently reported on the protests against taxes. This is protested every year but not usually reported. Protest wise they are not even very big more people protest war, unfair labor practices, and abortion than do taxes and those protests usually do not make the news. Well some interent news sites are also biased, it is easier to weed out the biases on the internet or find a less biased site.
*Many things that I feel should have made the news do not make the news (at least the local news and often don't make the national). One example being in India recently over 1,500 farmers committed suicide because they were getting in deeper and deeper debt because of a lack of water for their crops. For another example, almost everything involving the war/s the United States is currently fighting.
* The internet gives me access to more news outlets, particularly overseas ones. I find out more things happening in my country from foreign news sources like the BBC than I do ones from my country.
* The internet gives me the news much faster. For example, the local news recently aired a story on how some places in England are using high pitched sounds outside the range of most adults to prevent loitering (as people age they can hear less frequencies, though some people past twenty can still hear those ranges, like me - the device makes a high pitched pulsing noise at 17 kilohertz). I read about this well over a year ago, the internet also told about how some teens are using that noise as a ring tone - so as to get messages in places that cell phones are not allowed like classrooms, and that the company that made it to prevent teen loitering is now making one that everyone can hear to keep undesirables out of subways and underpasses.

Before We Ruled the Earth

I recently watched Discovery Channels program Before We Ruled the Earth. This is a two-part documentary made in 2003. Each part is 49 minutes long and has no extra's. It is sold on two dvd's instead of one, like it should have been. This program tells of humanoid history from around 1,700,000 years ago to around 8000 years ago. It skips a lot of history and personally I didn't think it was that good. The CGI on this was pretty bad considering the year it was made. The way they showed the Homo Ergaster walking was not fluid/realistic in my opinion, much to awkward to be viable, and while the make up was actually pretty good. I feel they didn't add enough distinct features to the humanoids (though I do realize it might have been difficult to do so - Homo Ergaster for example had a smaller jaw).

It mentioned in the first documentary, Hunt or be Hunted, that it is unlikely that the humanoids (Homo Ergaster and Homo Erectus) felt grief and it would be like that for hundreds of thousands of years. I don't agree with that. They may not have buried their dead but I think they would have felt grief for the passing of a family member. The reason I say this is early humanoids were social creatures and social creatures express grief at the lose of a loved one/sibling/parent. This is not limited to humans other social creatures have and express grief. Elephants are social animals that express grief often. When an elephant, particularly a baby, gets lost from the pack or dies the entire herd express's grief and some times rage. Elephants have been shown to stay with a dead or dying member for days grieving and have invaded, destroying villages in search for there baby elephants. Many animals have stronger attachments than people think they do. A study on a herd of cows has shown things like a male cow will eat at mid day next to it's mother even when fully matured.

It is not just people projecting human emotions on to animals. It has been shown that biochemical changes in the blood and brain of animals that appeared to be bonded and that then experienced separation and loss for one reason or another occur. This happens in many social species like some birds and dolphins. The animals may not understand death, deal with it like humans do, or have a concept of afterlife but they do understand loss/separation and display symptoms of grief. Animals often become withdrawn, lack an interest in social contact, occasionally kill themselves (some types of birds have been known to kill themselves), and display other signs of depression. There are books on grief in animals/primates. One that I read part of is The Nature of Grief by John Archer, though that is on grief in general not animal specific but does make mention of grief in animals.

The documentary had been split into various scenarios of various times showing mostly people hunting. Quite a bit of this was speculation. The hunting practice of Homo Erectus shown in the documentary makes sense from fossil evidence, except for one part. The Homo Erectus would use fire to coral animals over a cliff side, the fires went out, animals rushed the humanoids injuring some and getting away. The part about this that doesn't make sense is the humanoids leading the animals were only armed with torches. Not a one of the hunters leading them to the cliff was equipped with a spear. Homo Erectus had spears, this is even mentioned that the hunters at the bottom of the cliff had them, why wouldn't those trapping the animals not be similarly armed?

Parts of the scenarios I didn't like, more boring than they should have been, but not counting that they were on occasion showing uncommon events. Considering how little we know and how much has to be speculation, you'd think they would stick to the common battles not uncommon events.

From the second documentary I don't have much to say really except for where were the dogs? The time period of the second documentary, Mastering the Beasts, is from 15,000 years ago to around 8,000 years ago. Dogs were domesticated around 15,000 years ago. There should have been dogs in this. The documentary makes mention of people first crossing the Bering Straight land bridge. When people did that they were accompanied by dogs. It's even thought that dogs had a valuable part in making the crossing possible.

Weird, True & Freaky

Weird, True & Freaky is a television show on Animal Planet. I recently watched two episodes of it. Personally I don't find the show to be very interesting. The first episode I watched showed animal birth defects, mutations and biological animal oddities. If you like seeing weird things you'd probably like this show. I didn't really like it since I do not really like seeing animal oddities put on display. The show would have been more interesting had it been more about the science as to why and less on how the animals look. Of course seeing these (which I have seen before) makes it easy to see where myths on cyclops (they showed a cyclops pig) and creatures like the Hydra (snakes with more than one head) came from.

The second episode was more interesting than the first one I saw. In it they showed people eating various animals usually not thought of as food (at least in the targeted audiences point of view). I already knew people eat weird things. This is also a matter of personal opinion and social mores. The show, showed people eating things like rats, insects, scorpions, snakes, etc. Really not that weird. Many things that can be found in the USA are just as weird. There is even a club, Explorers club, that meets annually and eats weird foods, like roaches. I had read a short story about a more diabolical version of them before with them eating a phoenix but no longer can remember who wrote that.

Many things that people eat; other people would consider weird or disgusting. Japanese Shashimi -raw fish, the Koreans eat live still living octopus (which is not common in Japan - they eat it raw but kill it first), Insects in chocolate or hard candy can be found in some stores here in the USA, the French eat snails, English eat blood pudding, and the Scottish eat haggis all of which many people in the USA would consider weird/disgusting foods.

Some of the things seen in the Ranma manga would have been able to have been put on this show. One such example is mamushi-zake (snake in drink). Ranma's clone in the mirror arc has this. Mamushi-zake is an old folk remedy made by soaking a mamushi (snake) in sake or other alcoholic beverage for about a year. The snake can be used three times traditionally. It is said that this drink increases male sexual stamina. There are other foods seen that maybe considered weird but that is all a matter of opinion -like Takoyaki which is balls of fried or baked, diced or whole baby octopus. Which Ranma and Genma fight over in the story arc in which Akane's body is taken over by a vengeance doll.

Walking with Prehistoric Beasts

Walking with Prehistoric Beasts continues where walking with dinosaurs left off and tells about some of the creatures who lived from around 65 million years ago (really though it's more so 49 million years ago, I don't know why they skipped the Paleocene age) until around 30,000 years ago. This was a very well done documentary, the CGI and movement were better than Walking with Dinosaurs, though it wasn't bad in that series either.

For some reason this period of time just doesn't get the type of attention and awe of the dinosaurs. I don't know why, the biggest known creatures of all time come from this time. True they are in the ocean and the biggest one known of all time is still around today (Blue Whale). The land animals may not have been quite as big as the dinosaurs but they were still very large. Sabertooth cats and Indricothere were very, very large. They also have a seemingly larger variety of body types. We also know a lot more about some these large creatures than we do the Dinosaurs. The Woolly-Rhinos and Woolly-Mammoths lived along side humans for awhile and we have found their remains in incredible detail. Some of them are so well preserved in ice that the meat could theoretically still be eaten (which makes me wonder how much a mammoth steak would cost).

It mentions that 49 million years ago bird ruled the world. Particularly large flightless meat eating birds. These large "terror birds" really aren't that different from dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs like ornithomimid's had bird like beaks made from keratin like modern day birds. Some dinosaurs had feathers, though some scientists (a minority) do argue this stating that they aren't feathers instead they are "structural fibers, probably collagen—the most abundant fiber in vertebrates—of the skin and the dorsal frill" and that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs instead they share a common ancestor. I have no reason to disagree with the majority of paleontologists who claim to have a lot of information pointing to birds being direct descendants of the dinosaurs. I suppose it is possible that they did evolve separately from a common ancestor but even if that is true, that doesn't necessarily mean dinosaurs couldn't have had feathers. Two parallel evolutionary paths could have many similarities. The thing is dinosaurs like oviraptors, a particularly bird like dinosaur with a beak and feathers, look very similar to the large flightless bird of the time after the dinosaurs and those large flightless birds could possibly have evolved from them. This class of dinosaurs was generally small but they have found remains in China of a 26 feet long and 16-1/2 feet tall bird-like dinosaur that lived around 70 million years ago called Gigantoraptor erlianensis (36 times larger than the nearest known relative).

Mentions some of the animals date of extinction like the Woolly Mammoth. It says they died out 19,000 years ago. Newer findings contradict that. In Europe and Southern Siberia some were still present until about 8,000 BC. A small population of woolly mammoths survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 6000 BC, while another remained on Wrangel Island, located in the Arctic Ocean, up until 1700 BC. Though these island living ones that died out much later are a dwarf variety. Other dates given for animal extinctions have also been revised since some small populations of the various animals have been found to exist for longer than originally thought.

There are Australopithecus in the series and they say that they are an ancestor of modern humans. This was thought for a while but recent studies (2006) have changed some scientists minds since it's jawbone is closer to a gorilla's and creatures from the genus homo (our genus) have been found that date further back than Australopithecus, so the branching of the family tree was earlier. Its still part of the Human clade (had a common ancestor of us) but we're not direct descendants of them.

In the making of video entitled Triumph of the Beasts, one person states that the creatures are so weird looking. Personally I did not find them to be very weird looking. A lot of the animals have similar looking animals still alive today. A woolly Mammoth and woolly Rhino really doesn't look much different than the non-woolly versions. There are far stranger looking creatures in existence today and creatures that seemingly make absolutely no sense. A Platypus for example is a very strange very weird looking creature. It is an egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal that walks like a reptile. Personally I find platypus (there is no real plural form for them and several different ones are used) to be the weirdest thing, even genetically they are weird having 10 sex chromosomes and we have no idea at all how the sex is determined since it doesn't have the SRY gene that most mammals have and seems that it sex genes might be similar to birds. A study of the platypus genome sequence revealed it to have both reptilian and mammalian elements, as well as two genes found previously only in birds, amphibians and fish. If you want to see things that truly look alien magnify microscopic insects and look at the creatures at the bottom of the ocean.

In the second making of video entitled The Beasts Within, One of the people states "from what we know about human evolution upright walking came before tool usage". I don't agree with that. I say this because there are living primates who do not walk upright that use tools on occasion. Wild monkeys have been observed using thrown branches to discourage threatening or pursuing individuals; wiping of wounds with lightly masticated leaves; thrown rocks; sticks used for clubbing, throwing, prodding, prying lids, and to reach objects and rake them in; and rocks for pounding upon tough fruits or nuts. Monkeys have also been observed playing with sticks and helping each other with tools - wiping other monkeys wounds. Chimpanzees use containers, have been observed in captivity to store water and they use anything from leaves to rope as a sponge to draw water when they can't reach it then suck on it to get the water. They will fish for termites, dip for ants, pick locks, use sticks to touch things that they prefer to avoid (dangerous or unpleasant objects/animals or new chimps), use poles for balancing and climbing, and clean themselves with leaves. Recently (2007) chimpanzees in the Fongoli savannah have been observed using sharpened sticks as spears when hunting (Washington Post article on this). Orangutans have also been known to braid "straws" into ropes to climb and swing and they will remove inefficient aspects of their tools, such as leaves upon a digging stick. Primates are not the only tool using animals. Dolphins have been seen using rocks to break open shells, Crows will use sticks to get insects out of holes, elephants will use sticks to scratch themselves, etc. Judging by the varied tool use of other primates that do not walk upright and animals that aren't even primates, I find it unlikely in the extreme that walking upright came first. The thing that annoys me is not so much the assumption that walking upright came first it is that these behavior in animals were observed a long time before this series was made. Example these books first one written in 1980 and second one written in 1993 document animal tool use; Animal Tool Behavior: The Use and Manufacture of Tools by Animals & The Use of Tools by Human and Non-human Primates.

Walking with Dinosaurs

I recently re-watched Walking with Dinosaurs. The Television series was made by the BBC and tells about dinosaurs in the style of a nature documentary. They used CGI and animatronics to recreate how they believe dinosaurs were. It is a pretty good series though generally I do not like CGI all that much. The main reason I dislike CGI is because the movements are quite often not fluidic, they are odd or unnatural. The CGI used in this television series was pretty good, unlike Beowulf. In that movie, some of the perspectives shown and odd movements creeped me out.

I like dinosaurs and have read several books on them over the years. I like to keep abreast of the newer theories. Some are quite interesting. Quite a bit of the series was actually on reptiles and some on mammals not dinosaurs. This makes sense since dinosaurs lived with other creatures as well. The thing is since it is a series on dinosaurs, I wouldn't have expected that the primary focus of a couple episodes was on reptiles and not on dinosaurs. The episode about the sea and the episode on flying reptiles. Those are creatures that lived during the time of the dinosaurs but were not actually dinosaurs. They were reptiles. While dinosaurs evolved from reptiles they are usually considered a separate class of creatures. At least since the 1970's, before that dinosaurs were considered to just be reptiles. Those episodes weren't bad but I would have expected them to stick to telling about the dinosaurs and talk about the other creatures of that time period more in passing.

Though walking with dinosaurs is a very good series, it has become dated some of the information told in the film is no longer the most accepted theories. As we dig up more specimens and learn more about the dinosaurs our understanding of them changes. An example from the series is: It mentions that birds unlike raptors have developed feathers instead of scales. Newer findings show that at least some raptors had feathers. They found fossils of raptors that had feathers. At another point they mention that Brachiosaurus was the largest land animal to exist or will ever exist. Since the series was made several fossils have been found showing evidence of even larger sauropods.

The series makes many assumptions, extrapolations, and guesses using the prevalent theories. Many things about dinosaurs are under debate. As more specimens are found and our knowledge grows it is likely that at least some of these assumptions will be no longer the most accepted theories. Dinosaurs of popular culture, e.g. movies do not always follow the prevalent theories so many people have an inaccurate view on them. If you had seen Jurassic Park there is a scene with the Tyrannosaurus unable to see the people because they stand still. It is not the prevalent theory nowadays, in that no one believes that - What is known of Tyrannosaurus rex brains, they likely had very keen vision, it's facial structure had adapted to allow it binocular vision and allow it to see "over" its snout like a wolf does. These are not the kinds of adaptations you expect to see in animals with poor, movement-based vision. Though judging by other factors sight was not it's strongest sense, it's sense of smell was likely better, to a significant degree, than it's sight.

There is an episode about antarctic dinosaurs. They make a lot of guess and extrapolations about them, more so than most of the other dinosaurs. Very few antarctic dinosaurs have been dug up only about 8 species have been found in Antarctica. The reason for this is because Antarctica is covered by ice and is extremely hard to dig/live in. Most of what is known about those dinosaurs is guess work. They are judging the behavior based on other dinosaurs habits (similar type dinosaurs with more fossil remains than are known for that particular dinosaur) and are assuming since they are physically similar their behavior will be similar. It might or might be. We do not know and are unlikely to ever known with complete certainty. We don't even know about the behavior of all the living animals in the world today and the behavior of much more recent creatures than dinosaurs (last few million years). A lot of the animals alive do things for reasons that we do not know or at least do not completely understand.