This week a tiny possum and a glider known only from fossils turned up alive in West Papua. English Wikipedia's page on species found alive after being written off drew 351 and 380 human views on 20 and 21 October, against 168 to 289 on most days since 21 September (Wikimedia daily counts). Time to check your own cupboards.
Thought ExtinctA rediscovery survey for the hobbies you dropped
The paints in a box, the bass behind the door, the shoes by the bin. List the hobbies you let go, one moment that pulled you in and what pushed you out. Each one gets a camera-trap still and a verdict: revive it, reshape it, or let it rest.
1 The specimens
Up to six hobbies. Only the name is required; the two moments are what the survey reads.
2 The camera traps
Each still is drawn in your browser. The moon is the one on the 15th of the month you last did it (worked out, not looked up). Stamps: SIGHTED revive, NEW RANGE reshape, AT REST let it rest.
Field notebook
| No. | Hobby | Last seen | Gear left | Missed | Reason still there | Sorted |
|---|
3 Commission the survey
One run reads each hobby's two moments for what really drew you in and what really pushed you out, writes how to bring it back - as it was, or reshaped around the pull without the push - or how to let it rest, gives one first outing of 30 minutes at most, names the pattern across your hobbies and suggests two questions to ask someone who knew you then.
The sorting is a fixed rule, checked in order: let it rest if you miss it 1 or 2 out of 5; otherwise reshape if the reason you stopped is still there (or you are not sure); otherwise revive. The first to bring back is the one you miss most, then the one with more gear left, then the one listed first.
4 Your survey log
How the free side works
Everything above the survey is plain arithmetic in your browser. How long a hobby has been dormant counts whole months from the month you last did it (the middle of the year when you give only the year). The moon comes from a fixed new-moon date and the average lunar month, so it is close but not exact. The silhouettes are picked by keywords in the hobby's name; anything unmatched gets a set of tracks. The sorting rule and the pick are the ones written above, nothing more.
A returned survey is checked against your form: one entry per hobby, each verdict and the pick against the rule, a first outing for every hobby coming back and none for the ones at rest, no outing past 30 minutes or set on a day or time you never gave, no kept gear when you said none is left, no driver or reason where you left a moment blank, no "years ago", no he or she, and no internal field names in the text.