A study conducted by AZE (Alliance for Zero Extinction) scientists working in collaboration with an international network of experts have so far identified 595 sites that must be effectively protected to prevent the extinction of 794 of the world’s most threatened species. The AZE aims to prevent imminent species extinctions by identifying and safeguarding the places where Endangered and Critically Endangered species are restricted to single remaining sites. The criteria for selecting sites are:

1. Endangerment - An AZE site must contain at least one Endangered (EN) or Critically Endangered (CR) species, as listed by the IUCN Red List.
2. Irreplaceability - An AZE site should only be designated if it is the sole area where an EN or CR species occurs, or contains the overwhelmingly significant known resident population of the EN or CR species, or contains the overwhelmingly significant known population for one life history segment (e.g., breeding or wintering) of the EN or CR species.
3. Discreteness - The area must have a definable boundary within which the character of habitats, biological communities, and/or management issues have more in common with each other than they do with those in adjacent areas.

AZE is first focusing on species that face extinction either because their last remaining habitat is being degraded at a local level, or because their tiny global range makes them especially vulnerable to external threats.

Why am I mentioning this? Well, it seems Jamaica has 5 such sites with 9 species that have made the AZE list. Only 2 of the sites are currently under protected status.

1. JM1 - Blue and John Crow Mountains (protected)
   • Eleutherodactylus alticola (Common name: Lynn’s Robber Frog) - critically endangered
   • Eleutherodactylus andrewsi (Common name: Andrews’ Robber Frog) - endangered
   • Eleutherodactylus nubicola (Common name: Portland Robber Frog) - endangered
   • Pterodroma caribbaea (Common name: Jamaica Petrel or Blue Mountain Duck) - critically endangered (last seen in 1879)
2. JM2 - Cockpit Country (protected)
   • Eleutherodactylus griphus (Common name: Trelawny Parish Robber Frog) - critically endangered
   • Eleutherodactylus sisyphodemus (Common name: Quick Step Robber Frog) - critically endangered
3. JM3 - Hellshire Hills (unprotected)
   • Cyclura collei (Jamaica ground iguana) - critically endangered
4. JM4 - Portland Ridge (unprotected)
   • Eleutherodactylus cavernicola (Common name: Portland Cave Robber Frog) - critically endangered
5. JM5 - St. Clair Cave (unprotected)
   • Phyllonycteris aphylla (Common name: Jamaican flower bat) - critically endangered

To find out more about AZE, see: http://www.zeroextinction.org and for the map of all the world sites: http://www.zeroextinction.org/aze_map.pdf.

As of Thursday morning, all the phone lines in my house are working. We have had to replace all the cordless phones and one of the wired ones. Still no luck with the DSL though (but I have heard there is a general problem going around). As a result I am resorting to dial-up. Sigh. Better than nothing tho.

• Wednesday, November 16, 2ish
  C & W shows up - but not to fix the DSL (which apparently has not yet been reported). No, this guy was here to work on the report that was made on Friday morning. Are you kidding me?!?! 5 days later?? and on top of it he had been assigned only 1 of the 4 lines. So of course, he left without doing much because the line he was assigned was seemingly working right now.
• Wednesday, November 16, 3pm
  Phone tech guy shows up and gets the 2 now-dead lines back up and running. Says he still hears no DSL.
• Wednesday, November 16, 4:15pm
  Phone tech guy has just left but it seems the 2 lines are still switched. :-S Ok, getting tired of this. He says he will come back. Apparently the master jacks are all fine but the connections for the extensions keep getting screwed up.
• Wednesday, November 16, 4:45pm
  Phone tech guy is back. This time it’s a long process to check each and every room to see which extensions are mixed up. He fiddles and eventually leaves (about 6:15ish) having corrected 3 or 4 rooms and diagnosed that there is one cable that seems to be shorting out and causing a problem. He is due to return in the morning. Sigh. And still no DSL.

The continuation of our telecoms mystery:

• Sunday, November 13, 6pm
  We now discover that all the cordless phones in the house have been fried by the aforementioned lightning…
• Sunday, November 13, 6:15pm
  … as well as the modems that were still connected so even dial-up will be a problem (except for the one in my PC which was not connected)
• Monday, November 14, lunchtime
  New discovery - 2 of the lines have been switched so the wrong extensions are ringing. Unfortunately (and not too surprisingly) it’s the main line for the house switched with the one only used for the internet.
• Monday, November 14, just after lunchtime
  Pops comes home with a modem on a for loan - to test - to purchase basis. 3 hours later the modem is still not working.
• Tuesday, November 15, post-lunchtime
  Pops returns with another modem and this one works. So Bianca is again live by about 4pm. Finally!! The phone tech is supposed to return to re-switch the switched lines.
• Tuesday, November 15, post-pan
  Bianca returns home to hear the strange tale - no DSL and 2 lines dead!! Apparently, the phone tech came by and returned the lines to their normal state and all was well. When Pops then went to reconnect the DSL to the correct jack, he discovered it wasn’t working (the DSL not the phone). When he tried to call C & W it turns out the phone was dead. The phone tech returned only to diagnose a complete lack of DSL signal on the line both inside and outside the house (tho C & W says all is well on their end). It also turned out the the mysterious phone duppy has decided to launch its attack by killing 2 of the lines for no reason the phone tech can identify. Of as expected these are the 2 main lines for the house.
• Tuesday, November 15, 11ish in the night
  Bianca resorts to plugging back in her modem and using dial-up to get online. Sigh. Better than nothing.
• Wednesday, November 16, now
  Currently waiting to see or hear from both the phone tech and C & W.

Ok, first order of business - Where the hell have I been these last several days?? Well I will outline the telecommunications crisis that has occurred (and is still occurring) chez moi:

• Thursday, November 10, somewhere around 2pm
  Setting the stage for culprit #1, the rain begins.
• Thursday, November 10, about 5 minutes later
  The sky opens and a storm from nowhere pours down outside my house including thunder and lightning.
• Thursday, November 10, after about 1/2 hour
  Enter culprit #1 - A sound like an explosion inside my room, my eyes register a flash as everything around me brightens and then everything goes dark. As my dogs burst into a fit of barking I realize it was thunder accompanying what must have been a nearby lightning strike. Further investigations reveal a witness in the form of my helper who apparently saw the “big ball of fire” when the lightning hit a transformer.
• Thursday, November 10, approximately 10:30pm
  JPS (on the phone) confirms they have a team working on the problem and the power should be back that night though no estimate is available.
• Friday, November 11, 6ish in the morning
  I awake to see that the power has been restored (yay!!) so after my breakfast I try to jump online. No luck - “Network cable unplugged”. So I go to check the DSL modem to see a little blck box with no lights. Not a good sign. I attempt restarting, resetting but to no avail. I decide to check the phone lines –> BINGO!
• Friday, November 11, about 6:45am
  I have discovered that all 4 lines in the house have a problem:
  • #1 - Line has static and unable to make or receive calls
  • #2 - Completely dead
  • #3 - Completely dead
  • #4 - Line can make and receive calls but too much static on line to hear
• Friday, November 11, 7ish
  Call placed to JPS where very pleasant customer service lady takes the info on the 4 lines including that they are at the same premises.
• Friday, November 11, about 4pm
  Call placed to JPS (after waiting all day) to inquire whether report been assigned and when to expect someone. A smiling agent says she cannot say but she will put a reminder on the report.
• Friday, November 11, about 6pm
  Called placed to private phone technician who says he will come by on Sunday in case C & W does not show.
• Saturday, November 12 ALL DAY
  I go about my business enjoying my birthday. No way in hell am I sitting around waiting for C & W. No clue whether they showed up or not.
• Sunday, November 13, approximately 11am
  A call to JPS reveals that ONE of the 4 line reports has been assigned. :-S The lovely agent says she will try to see if she can get the other 3 assigned to the same person.
• Sunday, November 13, 2ish in the afternoon
  Phone tech (not C & W) shows up. Discovers that essentially a power surge from the lightning must have fried some little bolt thingies (and the DSL modem). Informs me that the lines are now working but I should wait till he replaces those things to use it. No problem.
• Sunday, November 13, 5:30pm
  Phones finally fixed. Yippee!!

N.B. This is not the end of the saga unfortunately. I will elaborate tomorrow but let’s just say I am using dialup right now ARRGH!

Given that I am not working a lot fo my time these days is spent online, watching TV or reading. Online my first stop everyday is my list of “Daily Reads” (otherwise known as my circle of blogs). Since this list as reached nearly 20, checking them everyday to see if they have posted takes up a lot of time and leaves me with many browser windows/tabs open (I do use Firefox some of the time).

So I am sharing my latest discovery. I knew feed readers existed but hadn’t gotten into it yet. Yesterday I decided it was too much so I went a-searching. I have settled on using BlogBridge. It’s java-based and works pretty well from what I have seen. You just enter the feeds you’re interesting in tracking and it will check them for the latest posts.

For the uninitiated (as I was before I started my investigations) most blogs and many websites will provide a link to their feed. Just look for something saying syndication, RSS, RSS2, feeds etc., copy that link shortcut and enter it into a program like BlogBridge. For those Blogspot sites which are filling up everyone’s reading list (especially my circle), the link is not included in most templates by default though the feed is enabled. All you need to do is add “/atom.xml” to the site URL so “http://theirname.blogspot.com” becomes “http://theirname.blogspot.com/atom.xml“.

That’s it, then when your feedreader checks for the latest it will let you know if any of the sites on your list have been updated. There are several programs like this, and several online services which do the same thing. I listed a few below to get you started:

• Online:
  • Bloglines
  • NewsGator
• Desktop:
  • FeedDemon (not free)
  • BlogBridge (also has an online service for free)

Or check this Wikipedia list of news aggregators (another name for feedreaders)

“You think you know who you are? … You have no idea.” (Quote from Crash, 2004)

A recent colour discussion on a friend’s site reminded me that I had wanted to comment on a movie I watched recently. If you haven’t seen “Crash” yet, I highly recommend it.

The movie has an ensemble cast (including Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Tony Danza, Keith David, Loretta Devine, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito) who superbly portray a collection of characters whose lives all bring them face-to-face with race relations in Los Angeles. Through the interleaving stories that play out over the course of the two days shown in the film, each of the characters is forced to confront prejudices, their own and those of others. Perceptions and judgements about people are challenged with each scene and you are forced to think about some of the questions posed:

• what would you do when someone acted as you expect them to?
• how would you deal with being profiled because of your race?
• how would you protect your children in a violent society?
• how would you react to being the token “minority”?
• where would you turn when you realize your own prejudice?

Watching the film not only highlights the racial tensions that still exist, but forces us to consider whether we ourselves or the people we know are shown in these people. Few people can prevent themselves from making some kind of judgement about someone on first sight. It may not always be based on race or colour, but may be about the clothes they wear or what they drive. You will find yourself thinking a little more carefully before lumping someone into a group without basis.

By the end of the film, you will have wanted to laugh, cry and feel with the characters. But more than anything else, hopefully you will come out of it being reminded that people all have fears, all have loved ones, all have something in common, regardless of where they come from, or the colour of their skin.

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines a time capsule as “a container storing a selection of objects chosen as being typical of the present time, buried for discovery in the future.” Another definition, from Wikipedia, is a historic cache of goods and/or information, usually intended as a method of communication with people in the future. (more…)

I recently watched “Butterfly Effect” with Ashton Kutcher. Not generally one of my favourite actors (outside of “That ’70s Show“) but I enjoyed this movie quite abit. Partly because its main premise tied into one my main philosophies in life.

The original term “butterfly effect” comes from chaos theory and describes the propensity of a system to be sensitive to initial conditions. The theory is typically applied to weather systems, with the notion of a butterfly flapping it’s wings in one area of the world causing a tornado or some such weather event to occur in another remote area of the world. (more…)

It’s amazing how things that we spend so much time preparing for seem to vanish in an instant. The band spent 7 1/2 months learning songs and rehearsing, with many late nights. And then just like that, it’s over. 3 days and it’s gone. There is always a mixed bag of feelings afterwards. What to do now? It’s finally over! Is that all there was? Can we do that again? Let’s never do that again! Althoguh you’re relieved it’s over, part of you feels the gap left where all that practising would go. You now have to find a new focus for your life, redirect your energies. So to my fellow band-members I say, go forth and live life, then we’ll see you in 2 weeks.