animals

Thursday various

Wednesday various

Wednesday various

  • Following up on the “there is no Triceratops, only Zuul” story I posted yesterday, here’s Caitlin R. Kiernan’s take on the whole thing:

    People are used to looking at species as static entities. But biologists work with species (and all other taxonomic units— the case of Triceratops is a genus-level problem) as hypotheses. And any given hypothesis may be discarded by future discoveries. That is, the name Triceratops is a hypothesis seeking to explain a collection of seemingly related fossils of a Late Cretaceous horned dinosaur. The hypothesis says that all specimens of Triceratops are more closely related to one another than they are they are to any other genus of chasmosaurine dinosaur. But, like all hypotheses, it can be falsified in light of future discoveries. In this case, the discovery of new fossils giving us a more complete picture of Triceratops as a living population of animals, and allowing us to realize that the morph we used to call “Torosaurus” is actually only the very mature form of Triceratops. As an hypothesis, “Torosaurus” appears to have been falsified. Now, it’s possible that Scannella and Horner are wrong, and that future discoveries and/or research of old discoveries will show that Triceratops and “Torosaurus” really are two taxa (though I’ve read the paper, and this seems unlikely). All hypotheses are provisional. Nothing is ever certain. Never. The best argument may be in error. That’s how science works, even if the press seems unable to grasp this.

  • Following up on the Gaiman/McFarlane legal battles I also posted about yesterday, Erik Larsen’s defense of McFarlane needs some work [via]:

    It’s one thing to start a flame-war, or be a loudmouth, or try to argue that, say, a court ruling was unfair. That, after all, is just another Tuesday on Twitter. It’s a very different thing to blame a judicial ruling you disagree with on sexist caricatures of women as irrational, swooning groupies — especially if you’re starting to make a habit of it.

  • FBI wants its seal removed from Wikipedia. Whichever side is right in this, I do like Wikipedia’s official response [via]:

    While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version of Section 701 that you forwarded to us…

  • Gio Clairval on Lightness: Italo Calvino’s hope for the future of literature. There are some really interesting thoughts here:

    Steampunk is often—not always, but often—set during the industrial revolution, a time that revolves around the heaviness of steel. A weighty century, indeed. Too-heavy ships crossed the oceans. Eiffel’s tower represented Man’s victory over iron. The ponderous consciousness of matter—inevitable—dominated until the late eighties. Asimov imagined immense computers. Arthur C. Clarke let enormous steles fall from the sky.

    But today, what fascinates us most in Steampunk? Airships pulled upward by light gasses. Impossibly floating cities.

  • And finally, for something completely different, a dog mowing the lawn [via]:

“Start at the end. Can’t tell a story if you don’t know where it’s going.”

Not an especially exciting Saturday, but pleasant enough.

I thought maybe I would go give blood this morning, since it’s the first time since March that I’ve been able to, but either the drive at our local church was canceled or I’d been misinformed by the Red Cross and New York Blood Center. Their actual donor centers are not at all convenient, so I’ll have to wait for another drive. Even though none seem to be scheduled any time soon just yet.

Instead, after running a couple of quick errands, I went with my mother to look at eyeglasses this afternoon. I was there mostly to act as a second opinion, helping her pick out frames, but I did set up an appointment for myself with their optometrist in a couple of weeks. The last time I bought eyeglasses — the first time I’d done so in maybe ten years, as a matter of fact — both pairs snapped in a matter of months. And then one of the replacement pairs snapped, too. So I wasn’t exactly in the mood to pay a few more hundred dollars just to go through that again. But this is a discount outlet that came recommended by my mother’s boss. It seems like a reputable place, and the price is good enough that if the glasses do break I won’t be out of pocket too much.

I spent the rest of the day just doing Saturday type stuff — some reading, some writing, neither enough of either. I went for a short walk. And this evening, I watched The Lookout. It’s not a remarkable movie, and not even Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s best work*, but he is quite good in it, and it’s quite entertaining. Sometimes you can’t ask for much more than that.

Oh, and the photo above is a rabbit that’s been visiting our front lawn (and yesterday our back yard) recently. We don’t usually — in fact never — get them this close to the house. They’re usually either a block away, right around the train tracks, or in empty fields. Maybe their food source moved, or the profusion of weeds we’ve had this summer has drawn them out. This one maybe isn’t the cutest bunny I’ve ever seen, but it’s pretty darn cute.

* The best things I’ve seen him in are probably Brick and Mysterious Skin. He’s been turning in enough really good performances lately that I’m honestly tempted to rent GI Joe, of all things.

Wednesday various

  • I know Terry Gilliam’s been having trouble getting films made, but has it come to this: he’s directing webcasts?

    But I kid. It looks like an interesting if unusual idea for a concert series, pairing directors and bands, and I might just check next Thursday’s webcast out if I have a chance.

  • E-books article drinking game. [via]
  • It’s actually been months since I’ve played Plants vs. Zombies, but I thought this was interesting: Michael Jackson Estate Forces ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ Update. Yeah, I can see how an undead Jackson might not sit so well with them. [via]
  • Speaking of zombies, Night of the Living Wonks [via]

    Looking at the state of international relations theory, one quickly realizes the absence of consensus about the best way to think about global politics. There are multiple paradigms that attempt to explain international relations, and each has a different take on how political actors can be expected to respond to the living dead.

  • And finally, baby moose in a sprinkler. Honestly, too cute for words. [via]