rare bird

This caught the eye of Boing Boing, king of the blogosphere: Guns, Germs and Steel on PBS The TV series Guns, Germs and Steel, based on Jared Diamond 's Pulitzer Prize-winning sci/history book, premiers tonight on PBS. The companion Web site covers a lot of thought-provoking ideas that are interesting whether you read the book, never heard of it, or, um, didn't finish it. From the overview: Inspired by a question put to him on the island of Papua New Guinea more than thirty years ago, Diamond embarks on a world-wide quest to understand the roots of global inequality. * Why were Europeans the ones to conquer so much of our planet? * Why didn't the Chinese, or the Inca, become masters of the globe instead? * Why did cities first evolve in the Middle East? * Why did farming never emerge in Australia? * And why are the tropics now the capital of global poverty? Link UPDATE: Jared Diamond is speaking in San Francisco this Friday as part of The Long Now Foun