At least we know the number

· Group size, grooming and social cohesion in primates.  Lehmann, J., Korstjens, A. H., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (School of Biol. Sci., Univ. of Liverpool, Crown St, Liverpool L69 7ZB, U.K. [e-mail: j.lehmann@liv.ac.uk]).  Animal Behaviour, 2007, 74, 1617-1629.

                “Most primates live in social groups in which affiliative bonds exist between individuals.  Because these bonds need to be maintained through social interactions (grooming in most primates), sociality will be limited by time constraints.  It has previously been shown that the time primates invest in grooming increases with group size.  However, when groups become too large, individuals will not have enough time available to service all possible social relationships and group cohesion is expected to decrease.  In this study, we used data from previously published studies to determine how large groups compromise on their grooming time and how ecological, phylogenetic and life history variables affect time invested in grooming (across species as well as within taxa).  We used path analysis to analyze direct and indirect (via group size) effects on grooming.  We showed that not only is grooming time determined by group size, but it is also affected by dispersal patterns and sex ratio.  Furthermore, we found that grooming time is asymptotic when group size exceeds 40 individuals, indicating that time constraints resulting from ecological pressure force individuals to compromise on their grooming time.  This was true across species, but a similar effect was also found within taxa.  Cognitive constraints and predation pressure strongly affect group sizes and thereby have an indirect effect on primate grooming time.  Primates that were found to live in groups larger than predicted by their neocortex size usually suffered from greater predation risk.  However, most populations in our analysis were placed well within what we define as their eco-cognitive niche.”

Chimeric identies. Mixing dna with synthetic dna to create mysterious persons. (Onkar)

One day we will return here.

Now let us visualise a framework for this setting in which people resonate with media through simulating processes. I remember hearing the words intelligent interfaces, disappearing computer and smart environments for the first time at a conference in Sweden, Jönschoping. Bewildered I listened to academic researchers painting scenarios of strollers in the park being able to point at trees with their smart ( rfid/bluetooth enabled) watches resulting in… a screen rising up either from the ground or next to the tree. On that screen? …information, data rather – about that tree. I’m sitting in my chair and look around me for smiling or laughing people, but nothing. This audience, top EU researchers and technical wizards, does not think this is ridiculous, strange, unnecessary at all. Instead, on the contrary what they see is open territory, a vast unknown adventure. Room to play. Yet I visualized a framework for this setting, grasping its radical potential immediately- as that tree had always spoken to me, as trees do to people who feel as well as see and hear. Or towers for that matters, my towers. Do they not realize that what actually matters in this vast grid of affordances that overlays so called material objects is their potential? their imaginary? Unaware they raise issues of alchemy, of witchcraft, magic. 

And we will not be fooled again.

Chinggis Khan or Temujin never rode out without his faithful hawk. One day the hawk prevented him from taking a ride to a quiet little lake. “The warrior was not to be thwarted by anything or anyone. Impatience culminated in Temujin’s wrath so that he smote the bird there and then.Upon reaching the lake, the warrior found that it was inhabited by a venomous snake. A death trap in waiting. He looked to the skies where his old friend no longer soared. Temujin sank down to his knees with his head in his hands. The hawk’s loyalty had been repaid with anger and mistrust and the reward could never be undone.” (http://clochesoumise.blogspot.com Subject: A different game) The big warrior-King forgot the power of his routine and ancient ways of knowing and paid for it immediately.  

Chimeric identities.

Makes me want to get medieval.

and one day, I will.