@llewelly@sauropods.win
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

llewelly

@llewelly@sauropods.win

I tried to write an introduction and it was so empty it collapsed inward on itself

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futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

When people talk about the days of mass media in the form of the evening news, Dan Rather, everyone "on the same page" with wistful longing... I get why. The current landscape is chaotic.

But, that period of more centralized media left a lot of people out. It made certain perspectives impossible to contemplate.

Like during the early days of the Gulf War: the antiwar movement was invisible.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird 1/8
on evolution: I read essays and books of Gould and others at what seems, in retrospect, a very young age. And yet I grew up around many people who rejected evolution. The few who "accepted" it thought of evolution purely in terms of the outdated "Great Chain of Being" concept that Gould criticized so frequently. And in those days, any scicom that wasn't aerospace or physics adjacent wasn't especially popular.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Ever look at the headlines and wonder which staff member at The Onion found a monkey's paw in their attic back around 2019?

llewelly, (edited )
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
often, I think back to that time the Onion wrote that "Gillette Says Screw 'em, we'll go FIVE BLADES" article.

and then, some time later, gillette really did go five blades.

if there are other timelines, our timeline is a parody of another timeline.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

"The Why Files" is a youTube channel that regularly has videos with over a million views. They started as a kind of paranormal/fringe science channel that was mostly harmless, and that often debunked conspiracies.

But, they've moved beyond that in to material such as suppressed patents for cars that run on water. And treating climate change like it's a unresolved question. This has made their audience grow.

The things is they aren't just spitting lies. 1/

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
when I watched more youtube, back in the first 5-10 years of youtube, I saw a lot of channels start out ok or even good and then head down this road. Youtube rewards the corruptible.

llewelly, to random
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

the popular urge to compare elon to a teenager with mental health difficulties ultimately rides on society's widespread hatred of people who have mental health problems, and on the widespread hatred of young people. It has great potential to damage people who have mental health difficulties, and great potential to damage young people, and no potential to damage elon. It is a classic example of "friendly fire".

llewelly, to random
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

erudite: Electronic form of rudite, a mineral known for its spicy hot takes

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

You know the early humans who lived in Europe 25k years ago? The ones with stone tools who carved thicc portable woman statues?

How many do you think there were in all of Europe?

I'm shocked to learn the estimates are only 30,000 people! Hardly even a small town... and spread over so much space. Humans were rare animals. Our shift to numerous is more extreme than I think we realize.

It explains why technology changed so slowly. Not enough people!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTn5KdsxZ0E

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@mckennas @futurebird
well there was a megafauna extinction near the end of the Pleistocene. We meet the definition of "megafauna" typically used: a typical adult size of 44kg or more. (yeah, this is smaller than many people think they when they hear "megafauna", but I blame Paul S. Martin. ) Maybe it's just luck we didn't get taken out in that extinction event.

llewelly, to random
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

I wish people would stop saying "the algorithm decided it" when they ought to be saying "some rich asshole decided it". Algorithms are created, maintained, and supported by people, usually at the orders of more powerful people. Don't let them use "algorithms" to deflect responsibility.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

If you want to cheer up someone who is obsessed with bugs just say something like "Aren’t roaches a type of beetle? I'm so confused can you help?"

Watch them visibly puff up as they explain and get more and more excited.

llewelly, (edited )
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
boxelder bugs are kind of funny because the family they belong to ( Rhopalidae) is sometimes called "scentless plant bugs", but actually, boxelder bugs have a strong defensive odor much like that of the stink bug family (Pentatomidae) , which they aren't closely related to.

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Which genus ant names should also be the name of heavy metal bands?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird @astronautiic
the weird jaws of Haidomyrmex are a great example of the kind of thing that would be criticized by people with overly narrow interpretations of what is possible in biology if it had appeared in fiction or a spec evo project, but it came from fossils!

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I've often read that in Europe in the 1500s people "didn't drink water everyone drank beer and wine"

... How did that work? I assume that there were beers without too much alcohol available? What about kids? pregnant women?

Was everyone just lightly drunk all the time? If I have a light beer I feel bad for two days. I understand the whole issue of all the rivers being fowled and cholera... but... how on earth did this work?

No juice or boiled water for pregnant women?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
the notion that people didn't drink water in the medieval ages is a myth, or perhaps at best an exaggeration:
https://www.medievalists.net/2023/05/drink-water-middle-ages/

futurebird, to writing
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Writing Prompt: In a future time your grave is robbed. Who is the theif? How do they see the “treasure” of your grave as salvation? How do they find it cursed? What is one thing in the grave that they do not dare disturb?

(a grave need not be a physical thing and treasure could be gold or information or anything rare)

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
reminds me of a bad 1980s novel in which paleoanthropologists, while investigating Clovis graves and the mystery of the end-Pleistocene extinction, find some intact dried preserved meat from the pleistocene. They reserve most of it for analysis, but can't resist eating some of it. Turns out it contains a horrible virus that turns every infected person into murderous super-predator, as would be required by Paul Martin's absurdly fast "Blitzkrieg" idea.

llewelly, to random
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

what's better than sparkly poop?

sparkly poop!

Ammineite is a sparkly mineral and it forms in dinosaur poop!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammineite

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

There is this trope in fiction: A boy gets bullied on his way to school; his dad teaches him to fight. It always seemed so bizarre to me.

Somewhere in there is a less perplexing story about a young person learning to deal with conflict--

But, I spent a lot of my childhood waiting to be "jumped" on the way to school. Because, I was being bullied, just not physically.

I was looking forward to learning kungfu and taking them all out. LOL. 1/

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
I often feel the distinction between physical and verbal abuse is misleading, and yet, I don't know how to avoid it. I've had bruises and concussions from being beat up and I've suffered taunting chants and constant insults, and they're both awful, but the latter occurs in an environment full of social structures that enable additional layers of tolerated deniability, which in turn enables repetition and escalation.

ai6yr, to random

Good news, my NHC (National Hurricane Center) bot appears to be working!

Bad news: Atlantic hurricane season starting up

https://m.ai6yr.org/

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@ai6yr
here's a link to the Mann post: https://fediscience.org/@MichaelEMann/112327546305626906

and to the Zoom Earth post: https://mapstodon.space/

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Homo naledi is the most interesting new human like primate. They are from South Africa, little people. walked upright, but primates walking upright goes way back.

They had hands just like modern humans but longish arms and powerful shoulders ... so they could probably zip up a tree.

They have small brains half modern size. This has made people astonished that they may have had fire.

I'm glad I'll never meet one, a smart little firebug with powerful arms sounds terrifying. 1/

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
I am convinced it is down to luck that this planet is "ruled" by fire-using primates rather than fire-using dinosaurs.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird there are 3 species of birds, the black kite (Milvus migrans), whistling kite (Haliastur sphenurus), and the brown falcon (Falco berigora), which are known to deliberately pick up burning branches, fly some distance, and spread them about to start new fires:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/wildfires-birds-animals-australia

ai6yr, to random

Ooooh, Ahhh.... 3664
https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/sunspot-regions.html

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@ai6yr if you've a good pair of solar eclipse glasses that cluster is actually visible!

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Could baby therapods have begged for food like this young road runner?

I wonder what sounds they made if they did?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQBMz2c9IEI

llewelly, (edited )
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird
Ironically the best evidence for care of young in non-bird dinosaurs comes from a different branch, the Ornithischians, specifically Maiasaura, found with a nest containing eggshells, and young too large to be hatchlings. Examination of their teeth provided additional evidence they had been living in the nest long enough to require feeding. For non-bird Theropods, I don't think there's such direct evidence of parental care, but it is a reasonable inference.

llewelly, to random
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

actually, neurotypicals only want to talk about the weather until you start talking about all the myriad ways weather is being altered by fossil-fuel driven global warming.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Book Cover

Title: "Born Pregnant"

A drawing of an aphid eating a blow pop, with a tiger-print bikini top and cut off shorts like "whatever I do what I want"/"cash me outside"

What is this book about? A garden-themed version of your typical urban fiction story featuring wild young aphids and horrified moral upstanding ants.

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@futurebird sure, sure, the ants make a big deal about how horrified they are, but what does a new queen bring to her mating flight? An aphid pregnant with an aphid pregnant with yet another aphid! . There are even those who say this is a post-ant-domestication phenomenon, bred into the aphids by the very ants themselves.

timhutton, to random
@timhutton@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Do all animal's mouths open horizontally?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@timhutton @simon @futurebird
I think fusion of both sides of the mandibles is the norm in tetrapods generally, but there are a number of notable exceptions, particularly baleen whales, and snakes, which for somewhat different reasons have a highly stretchy muscle there, which allows the two sides to spread very far apart, and yet be able to pull them back together when needed. Then there's Ornithischians and their predentary bone, but I've run out of room.

TheDinosaurDave, (edited ) to Wyoming
@TheDinosaurDave@sauropods.win avatar

#Dinosaurs in #Doctor #Who, who would have guessed...
Lets take a look at what they show, and break down what we can see.
They say they are 150m years in the past, in #Wyoming

In this image we can clearly see a #Brachiosaurus.
As far as I know, its been found in #Colorado which is close enough for it to migrate there.

It also looks fairly accurate for a #Giraffatitan adjacent species.

In the background, although harder to see are probably #Apatosaurs, or #Diplodocus.

Over all 10/10

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@TheDinosaurDave
the holotype is indeed from Colorado, but a foot referred to Brachiosaurus was found in Wyoming:
https://peerj.com/articles/5250/

Brachiosaurus is from the Morrison formation, which has dinosaur-bearing exposures in at least 7 (wikipedia lists 13) states in the western USA. Wyoming is more or less near the center.

gay_ornithischians, to random
@gay_ornithischians@sauropods.win avatar

friends do you think "animals" in the tetrapod size range that had hydaulic driven limbs would be too heavy to evolve flapping flight of the type seen in birds, bats and pterosaurs?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@gay_ornithischians
I'm not a biomechanicist, but I don't see any reason the limits for hydraulic driven limbs would be greatly different than those for typical vertebrate muscles.

ai6yr, to coffee

"Cowboy Coffee" recipe for 60 people (per vintage Betty Crocker)

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@mazz @ai6yr
yeah, thinking of all the coffee drinkers I've known, I can't think of one who would only drink 2/3 of a cup. 60 servings, sure, but only maybe a dozen people, or less.

ai6yr, to random

Somebody leave their sunspots on?

llewelly,
@llewelly@sauropods.win avatar

@ai6yr
it's my fault for writing this poem:
https://sauropods.win/@llewelly/112428063446385667

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