The Giant Weta, fool. There’s reports coming in it’s the largest bug on earth. Well, it does look rather large chomping on a carrot.

And apparently, people all over the world are freaking out over this photo of said Weta happily munching on said carrot. It’s cute, isn’t it?

Yet, irrationally, my daughter is praying that they, meaning Giant Wetas, will not infest Maryland anytime soon, although she does love bugs. It’s just that she’s creeped out because she had a dream about Wetas before she even discovered their actual existence. Only in her dream, they were bigger and eating people instead of carrots, which is impossible, of course, because they’re vegetarians, and no matter how large they get, we can assume and hope that they will remain vegetarians.

Even weirder than my daughter’s precognitive Weta dream, was her friend Caitlin’s dream, in which a banana and an orange chased her down the street. Although I’d rather be chased by runaway fruit than giant Giant Wetas.

Doctor Bugs and the Weight of Wetas

Anyway, this particularl Weta was captured and held in far away New Zealand’s Little Barrier Island by Mark Moffett, an entomologist, who refers to himself as Doctor Bugs. An article on MSN’s photoblog had this to say:

This particular species of the cricketlike creature — known as a giant weta or wetapunga to the Maori, and as Deinacrida heteracantha to scientists — is found only in protected areas such as New Zealand’s Little Barrier Island. That’s where Mark (“Doctor Bugs”) Moffett, an entomologist and explorer at the Smithsonian Institution, found the specimen after two nights of searching.

“The giant weta is the largest insect in the world, and this is the biggest one ever found,” Britain’s Daily Mail quoted Moffett as saying. “She weighs the equivalent to three mice. … She enjoyed the carrot so much she seemed to ignore the fact she was resting on our hands and carried on munching away. She would have finished the carrot very quickly, but this is an extremely endangered species, and we didn’t want to risk indigestion.”

But is it really the largest insect in the world? And isn’t it interesting that Doctor Bugs calculates the weight of insects in mice? I wonder how many mice I weigh. It seems a bit unscientific. After all, don’t some mice weigh more than other mice?

Anyway, here’s more on the Giant Weta of the day, including a couple of creature photos – I’m not sure what they are – that make the weta look as scary as a stuffed panda, comparatively speaking.

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When Snoopy went up against the Red Baron, all he had was his dog house, his courage, and his skills.

One thing he didn’t have was “fifth generation lethality.” My only question is, when do they get rid of the pilot all together?

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“The only way that we’re going to ratchet up our species is to take the best and to spread it around to everybody, so that everybody grows up with better things.”
Steve Jobs

Apparently, someone found a lost interview from 1995 when Steve Jobs was deep into ratcheting up the species, and it’s actually going to be shown in the theaters. But on YouTube, you can find another lost interview from 1990 that’s got to be equally as fascinating as anything he could have said in 1995. He’s young and he’s thinking big and different.

The whole 1990 thing’s available on YouTube in five parts. It seems like raw footage. He’ll talk between takes and ask for do overs.

You can watch the trailer of the lost 1995 interview here. Listen as Steve Jobs says, “The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. We were on a mission from God to save Apple.”

So who’s going to ratchet up the species now that Steve is gone? And did he, or did Apple, actually ratchet up the species? Who even thinks in those terms? And what does that even mean?

Has the iPad, for instance, enabled an evolutionary step forward for humanity? Has the Internet?

What happened in Egypt? How much was that due to technology? And did it enable a ratcheting up of anything, or just a change of government? And is a change of government ever something that actually improves the entire species? How about the American Revolution? Did it improve the species or just show the species the way to a better form of government? It’s hard to say we’ve become all that much better in a couple hundred years.

Iran once overthrew the Shah. And ended up with probably an even worse society.

Just thinking out loud. I’d better stop.

To see the video clips from the 1990 interview when Steve had no glasses, you’ll have to go to YouTube where you can watch in five installments. Let me ratchet up the simplicity and provide the link to the first one. You can take it from there.

Listen to the first one, as Steve Jobs talks about the condor being the most efficient creature at getting from point a to point b, something he remembered from an article he read when he was 12. And that humans didn’t do so well, but…but…a human on a bicycle turned out to be way more efficient that a condor. Because, and this is what impressed Steve Jobs, “humans are tool builders.”

And for proof, just look at the previous post.

I guess that’s what Steve Jobs was, a master tool builder who in 1990 thought of the computer as “a bicycle with a mind.”

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Actually, it’s the mother of invention. Of course, desperation might also be the mother of invention. As might a flood, like the one that has 20% of Thailand under water.

When things went bad for this guy, he didn’t just sit around getting wet. He built this thing.

Man on a homemade bike peddles through the floods in Thailand. (REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad)

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This goes in the category of inspiring business stories. First, you need an idea. Then you need some jewelry and Jessica Simpson and a nice website and lots of pretty faces.

Oh, then you send people jewelry. Amazingly people are attracted to pretty faces, and women do seem to like jewelry. The service is called JewelMint and TechCrunch has the entire story.

Basically, it’s like the book-of-the-month club. Only with jewelry.  They send you a new piece every week at a good price and then you wear it. But why stop there? I mean, if you’re busy getting rich with your line of websites named something-or-other Mint, always with a capital M, of course, why not keep building them?

Here’s TechCrunch.

Things went so well, in fact, that the company raised $23.5 million at a rumored $150 million valuation this past June. They followed that up by launching with their second vertical, StyleMint, in July — this time backed by the Olsen Twins. And now they’re ready for round three. Their latest vertical: Skincare.

On Monday the company launched BeautyMint, a service that’ll ship you a fresh supply of cleansers, toners, moisturizer, and creams every month. Rather than sending a random smattering, though, each user receives a personalized kit, depending on factors including their skin type, where they live, and the time of year. So far, the site is off to a very good start, with over 500,000 visitors in its first 24 hours. And that huge first day traffic was no doubt spurred by the fact that Jessica Simpson is onboard as the face of BeautyMint.

Cool, huh? And sure enough they’re taking my advice. They’re not stopping, as the article continues:

BeachMint has more verticals coming soon, too. Later this month, the company will launch ShoeMint, which will ship users shoes each month that have been designed by Rachel Bilson, Nichole Chavez, and Steve Madden. The founders add that they have more celebrities lined up for future verticals that they aren’t ready to announce just yet.

There’s a lot of potential here. I’m thinking of PuckMint. Every month it sends you a new hockey puck? Whattaya think? Got any ideas of your own?

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