{"id":1915,"date":"2014-09-01T21:55:50","date_gmt":"2014-09-02T01:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/?p=1915"},"modified":"2014-09-09T08:46:56","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T12:46:56","slug":"9-0-a-short-history-of-nearly-everything-by-bill-bryson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2014\/9-0-a-short-history-of-nearly-everything-by-bill-bryson\/","title":{"rendered":"9.0 A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The audio book is like listening to Douglas Adams sarcastically spinning yarns that turn out to be true.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You have been extremely &#8211; make that miraculously &#8211; fortunate in your personal ancestry.\u00a0 Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth&#8217;s mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides, has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so.\u00a0 Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life&#8217;s quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result, eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly, in you.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And here, the author quotes the history of the discovery of the laws of thermodynamics by Kelvin&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There are four laws.\u00a0 The third of them, the second law, was recognized first.\u00a0 The first, the zeroeth law, was formulated last.\u00a0 The first law was second.\u00a0 The third law might not even be a law in the same sense of the others.\u00a0 In briefest terms&#8230; One, you can&#8217;t win, Two, you can&#8217;t break even, and Three, you can&#8217;t get out of the game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Riotous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The audio book is like listening to Douglas Adams sarcastically spinning yarns that turn out to be true. &#8220;You have been extremely &#8211; make that miraculously &#8211; fortunate in your personal ancestry.\u00a0 Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the Earth&#8217;s mountains and rivers and oceans, every one &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2014\/9-0-a-short-history-of-nearly-everything-by-bill-bryson\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">9.0 A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[150,148,149,151],"class_list":["post-1915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-life","tag-darwin","tag-kelvin","tag-newton","tag-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9M0Zg-uT","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1285,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2011\/meet-the-best-women-soccer-players-on-the-planet\/","url_meta":{"origin":1915,"position":0},"title":"Meet the best women soccer players on the planet","author":"m","date":"May 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"These are the smartest players in the world. They will destroy you. Watching them move the ball is better than poetry. And we hung out with them on Wednesday. Literally. Even though the official roster for the United States Women's National Soccer Team has just recently been announced, we were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/20110520-103414-e1305904230342.jpg?fit=480%2C360&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":233,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2007\/ryan-stars-in-a-numb3r\/","url_meta":{"origin":1915,"position":1},"title":"Ryan stars in &#8220;A Numb3r&#8221;","author":"m","date":"February 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Andrea and I went to see another great performance by my coworker buddy Ryan Brock, again with The Raleigh Ensemble Players, who tend to put on the more interesting material in really intimate settings - you can't find better entertainment. This one dealt with cloning, challenging Ryan to play three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":251,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2007\/pax-and-ds-madness\/","url_meta":{"origin":1915,"position":2},"title":"PAX and DS madness","author":"m","date":"July 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow. Dan and I are going to PAX! That alone makes me (and KEEPS me) giddy as a schoolgirl. But right now I'm doubled up on happy sauce - to prepare for the big adult-kidfest, I just picked up a DS lite. I didn't know much about it, except it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":316,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2008\/coaster-weekend\/","url_meta":{"origin":1915,"position":3},"title":"Coaster Weekend","author":"m","date":"October 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Andrea and I are coaster-lovers, and we've got two brand-new recruits, Wren and Reiley! These girls rode EVERY COASTER that Busch Gardens Europe in Williamsburg, VA could throw at them! Each of their top 5 coasters is boss enough to have a mascot. Wren was tall enough to ride three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":247,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2007\/95-what-is-your-dangerous-idea\/","url_meta":{"origin":1915,"position":4},"title":"9.5 What Is Your Dangerous Idea?","author":"m","date":"August 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I wasn't far from throwing this book in the trash at times. Essay after essay from scientists condemning \"God\" as the dangerous idea that stands as the blockade to mankind and her progress. Blah blah blah. Be devoted to science, and the scientific method of discovery, but don't be one-dimensional,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/consumption\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":411,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2009\/greatly-exaggerated\/","url_meta":{"origin":1915,"position":5},"title":"Greatly exaggerated","author":"m","date":"July 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I went to see Dr. Cline on Tuesday for a follow-up to my fourth abdominal surgery on June 30th, and like a scene straight out of Arrested Development, he looked me straight in the eye and told me in his minimalist deadpan, \"I can't do anything for you.\" Then, ironically,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Daily Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1915"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1927,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1915\/revisions\/1927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}