07:49 – Today I’m supposed to receive the QC1 pass of the biology book, which is a PDF of the way the book will actually look in print. It’s been about six weeks since I last worked on the book, so this read-through counts as “semi-fresh eyes” in terms of catching any remaining mistakes. Obviously, I’m not the best proof-reader, because I wrote the thing, but I expect I’ll still catch a few mistakes. Once I return my corrections/comments, they’ll be incorporated into the master document and I’ll get one final chance with the QC2 pass in a couple weeks.
Barbara and I made up the first batch of 30 small-parts bags for the biology kits yesterday. The only thing still missing is the methyl cellulose, which I hope will arrive this week. This coming weekend, we’ll start assembling finished kits.
10:08 – Well, so much for the Greek default last Friday putting Greek debt on a “sustainable” footing. As of now, those New & Improved Greek bonds announced on Friday have already achieved junk status. The shortest-term of the new Greek bonds, those maturing in 2023, are now selling at prices that reflect 20% yields. The market is pissing all over Greece. Portugal is in the on-deck circle.
Here’s something amusing. For the first time in my life, someone has actually mistaken me for a young-earth creationist. It happened in a thread on the Well-Trained Minds forum where a literal Adam and Eve were being discussed. That kind of segued into a discussion of humans’ most-recent common ancestor. I said that it’s extremely probable that our MRCA lived within the last 5,000 years, probable that our MRCA lived within the last 2,000 years, and possible (although not likely) that our MRCA lived within the last 1,000 years. IOW, there is a small probability (maybe 0.1 or less) that everyone now alive descends from one person who was living 1,000 years ago. Someone took my arguments in favor of a recent MRCA as evidence that I was a YEC. I was rendered momentarily speechless (well, writeless), but I quickly understood how he could make that jump. For the record, no, I am not a YEC. I refer to YECs as “religious nutters”, which is actually being kind to them.