Random musing

It’s been proven that quite a few species of animals and birds have intelligence, speech, empathy, critical thinking, and analysis levels similar to those of humans. Dolphins, birds, parrots, dogs, monkeys to name a few.

What if this is true for all major eras in Earth’s history where what we define as animals/birds roamed the world? (As in, not lower celled life).

Could that mean that various eras of dinosaurs or early humans evolved intelligence levels appropriate to go beyond just their survival – problem solving, play, one-up-man-ship, etc.

But how can we figure this out? There would be some markers in the brains or bodies of current fauna to measure or perhaps only point to their intelligence. Would fossils allow us to find the same markers?

If I get a chance, I’ll google around to find out more on this topic. If you know something about this, dear reader, please let me know? In the comments or on socials would be great!

Has anyone I know played with Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid?

I was reading TBL’s profile in Vanity Fair and I learnt of this new idea he is working on – an idea of “Socially Linked Data” (SOLID) – which wants to decouple data and the apps that consume them, thus allowing more data portability and data ownership. The profile itself was more focused on the persona and his Oxonian wispy hair (I can’t blame Vanity Fair for focusing on that, but I can blame them for not linking to Solid’s homepage or github on their site) so the above description is from Solid’s sites.

Has anyone I know used it or played with it? How does it differ from or relate to IndieWeb?

Also, how does this truly help in making our data more free? The value that Facebook and Google derive from our data is not from the data itself, but the linking of that data with other data, or the relations that said data makes within itself. I do not know the extent of the data that Facebook creates on me. That data, wholly solely is owned by Facebook. Even if I export large parts of data about myself using their export, including the data they’ve collected (such as the WiFis I connect to, the times I browse my phone, all the items I’ve left in carts of shopping sites that connect with Facebook), I still cannot, afaik, get my hands on the data they create on me. How will a solution such as Solid make that data less harmful?

Anyone care to comment?

Photo by willowbl00