Strange Synchronicity

I don’t think what I write here has anything much to do with sustainability, but the coincidence is too strange to pass over without noting it. For all Apple Macintosh computer users, as I have been forever in computer time, yesterday, August 28, was the official publication of Apple’s latest operating system, OS10.6, known better by its nickname, Snow Leopard. I made sure my copy would arrive on this very first possible day. I have been planning to wait a few days to install it while I read all the reports pouring in from people who have gone ahead, as I suspect a number of my prized, but ancient, applications and other sundry programs will not work any longer. It’s calling to me from the package and I won’t be able to delay much longer.
But this is just preface to the real story. As I was browsing my RSS feeds, this one popped up. Dot Earth, a NYTimes environmental blog, [showed a photo](http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/28/rare-photo-of-snow-leopard-in-afghanistan/) of a rare snow leopard, taken in Afghanistan. The story’s publication date is, yes, August 28. Snow leopards are designated as an endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. That will eventually be the same fate as the users of the previous Macintosh OS.
What’s the chance of these two events happening on the same day? And, while Apple is known to introduce its products with great fanfares and media spectacles, how did they ever pull this one off.
Photo courtesy of the World Conservation Society and the NYTimes.