Posted in Birds, Saturday Birds on Aug 16th, 2008
We already saw some remarkable courtship displays in the Vogelkop Bowerbird. Here are some more, mainly pheasants:
Ornithology – David Attenborough – “Impressing the Females”
As in the bowerbirds, these are examples of sexual selection run wild.
Posted in Books, Freethought on Aug 12th, 2008
I buy used books a lot, and I’m usually a fussy buyer, trying to find copies that are in as pristine a condition as possible. I may have to rethink that policy, though, since I found out it can also be fun to browse through the annotations and scribblings left by previous owners. This weekend [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 12th, 2008
I love 419 scammers. “419″ refers to the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code, dealing with fraud, and classifies all those creatively unconvincing emails about wealthy African aristocrats who died and — GASP — left all their money to me!
Here’s the latest one, which is almost a piece of art:
From Miss Marie Ahmed
01 BP Rue [...]
Posted in Freethought on Aug 10th, 2008
Religion can fuck up your brain in subtle ways. Even when you grow up and choose reason over superstition, little islands of irrationality and special pleading can linger and come up at odd moments. As evidence, take Robert M. Price. I first learned of him when Freethought Fort Wayne announced they were bringing him to [...]
Posted in Birds, Saturday Birds on Aug 9th, 2008
We’ve already seen an instance of tool use in birds with Betty the New Caledonian Crow. Here’s another example of a bird improvising with a nearby object in a successful attempt to get food (the amateur narrator is a little… odd and, as one of the YouTube commentors pointed out, kind of Poohish, but [...]
Posted in WANT Wednesdays on Aug 8th, 2008
o, I know it isn’t Wednesday, or even the day after Wednesday. Here it is, freakin’ FRIDAY, and I’m just now posting my WANT Wednesday. I’ve been neglecting you, my bleaders (blog readers), and you, too, Butter. I sort of fell off the face of the earth since Monday, and boy, was it dark down [...]
Posted in Birds, History, Vexillology on Aug 7th, 2008
You know what I like? Flags. They’re just symbols, of course, and like frackin’ crackers, they aren’t particularly special by themselves, and their maltreatment can breach dams of pent-up emotions and irrationality and make life unpleasant for all involved. But I still like the craft involved in encapsulating a bit of the culture [...]
In lamenting the loss of the riverside habitat on campus where the geese used to gather, I think I was wrong about the type of behavioral modification I’ve observed in Whitey and the Honkers. I identified it as operant conditioning, but I think it’s better explained as classical, or Pavlovian, conditioning. They’ve simply learned [...]
Posted in Games and Quizzes on Aug 5th, 2008
I’ve loved word games pretty much all my life. We’ve played Scattergories at my family get-togethers for years, I remember playing Scrabble with my Dad when I was a kid, and now, thanks to the free weekday New York Times that are provided to us at school, I usually work on the crossword over [...]
Posted in Birds, Saturday Birds on Aug 2nd, 2008
Last week I mentioned briefly the European starling’s ability to mimic. But among mimics, the Superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae) of Australia, named for its tail, reigns supreme when it comes to detail and precision. In this clip, David Attenborough spies on one in his display area in the woods, and as usual, provides just enough [...]
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