Viraj's Weblog

I'm a reading a pretty good book called The Art of Being a Parasite. It has some really fascinating studies about parasites. One of them is regarding clutch size of a certain species of birds. This is basically the number of offspring. In this particular bird, their nests are filled with ticks that parasitize the babies (ectoparasites, on the outside of the body). This is not interesting in itself, but what is interesting is the behavior of parent birds when this happens in a controlled study. If researchers put more ticks in a nest, the parents have more children. It is as if they realize that the survival of their offspring is hampered due to the parasite, so the best strategy is having more children. Obviously there is a trade-off here because this will increase competition between the babies for food, perhaps making things worse. Makes you wonder what motivations belie other animals desire for many offspring, even humans. Could it be that the people who have more children instinctively do so out of fear that some will not live on?

There are all sorts of interesting studies like this in the book. Another story talks about how one group of poor people on an island suffered less from a particular parasite and it had to do with culture and religion.

Finally, and probably most instructively, these researches considered parasitism rates in light of traditional behaviors of different communities on the island. The most striking aspects of their report concern the Indian community, whose households manifested fewer cases of parasitism than did those of the other communities. "In their domestic lives, the Indians of Reunion have adhered to many rules and customary behaviors of their country of origin. These rules have even acquired a sacred value and are transmitted to children along with religious values. The separation of the pure and the impure, of the clean and the dirty are explicitly valued. There are ritual hand-washings, frequent baths, and shoes are considered 'dirty.' These practices establish a barrier between humans and the environment, even when the standard of living is low."

It's not hard to imagine that a reason for religion could be a survival advantage. By following certain rules, fabricated as they may be, they could have made a certain group of individuals more likely to survive.

Here is an interesting 2-hour documentary about money. Definitely worth checking out to learn about the history of our trading.

Been playing around more with Ardour. Here is my new recording. It's the first time I played with the effects available for Ardour. It's called "Detune" because it starts with a sample which I use a pitch shifter effect to get it to the tune I want. I learned a alot about using automation in Ardour.

This recording is a bit noisy any and is definitely missing some 'fatness'. The bass needs to be stronger. I also went a bit overboard with the reverb. Anyway, enjoy!