Monthly Archives: December 2012

The Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide to Birding Books

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This is a summary of several of the better books I’ve had the opportunity to review here, organized in general categories. This is written from a North American perspective since most of my readers are North American (though many of you live to the west of the “Eastern Region” … but you probably know that). So, when not specified, a book with a regional focus is likely to be for that area, and the “Outside the US” section is labeled thusly.

Everybody needs a basic field guide. If you need more than one field guide because you are a family of birders, or because you like to keep one in the car and one by the feeder, than make your second (and third?) guides different from your first, because there will be plenty of times you will want to look something up in more than one place. A field guide is a good starting point, but the “How to be a birder” section includes books that you will be very glad you read once you read them, and if you are going to pick one “how to” book for yourself or as a gift, make it the Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding. If you know a young person getting interested in birding, the National Geographic Birding Essentials is essential, and if they are in the Eastern US, the Young Birder’s Guide is perfect.

I’ve not covered bird song here, other than the one, rather spectacular iBook.

Field and Identification Guides

How to be a birder

Categorial Guides

Regional Bird Guides Outside the US

Academic or Topically General Books About Birds

Bird Song (and more)

  • Music of the Birds Volume 1 is an experimental book, in iAuthored iBook format, focusing on a handful of selected species in Eastern North America.

Children’s Books

Also, don’t forget to read ALL of my posts at 10,000 birds! There’s some other good posts there too.

Masters of the Planet

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Yesterday I wrote about Chris Stringer’s modified version of human evolution. Today, let’s have a look at Ian Tattersall’s new book, Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins (Macsci). Tatersall’s boo, like Sringer’s, is a good overview of the newer evidence in the constantly changing field, but he goes back earlier and provides a much broader context for human evolution. His main thesis is that the features that made modern humans unique have two main characteristics: 1) they were sufficient and causal in the process of making that one species “master of the planet” and 2) the transition to fully modern form, with respect to those features, is relatively late. Tattersall argues for a late and rather sudden development of symbolic abilities and language (I disagree with this) and seems to agree with Klein in something like a “single gene” theory describing this transition as sudden and dramatic. So, I basically disagree with his thesis, but if you want a good source to find out about the “symbolic explosion” version of modern humans, this is accessible and the documentation is pretty thorough.

Are Fox News Viewers Relatively Less Intelligent?

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A very humorous but fake study from the conservative “The Intelligence Institute” has been circulating around the Internet. The headline: “Intelligence Institute Study shows Fox News viewers have an IQ that is 20 points lower than the U.S. National average” The good news, the study says, “…an IQ of 80 is well above the score of 70, which is where psychiatrists diagnose mental retardation. P. Nichols says an IQ of 80 will not limit anyone’s ability to lead happy, fulfilling lives.”

Again, that is fake.

But it turns out that there is something else going on.

The underlying conclusions of this “study” are affirmed by research conducted by a number of reputable organizations including the University of Maryland, NBC/Wall Street Journal, and the Sunlight Foundation. Unfortunately, this study, and the “Intelligence Institute,” appear to be figments of some prankster’s imagination. There is no evidence that the institute exists and the sole source for the Yahoo! item is a press release that contains no verifiable identifying data.

Nevertheless, the perpetrator of this hoax seems to have a solid grasp on the cognitive capacity of Fox News viewers even if no study was conducted to document it. As noted above, plenty of other real studies arrived at the same conclusions. Here are some key “findings” by the imaginary Intelligence Institute…

And for that information, CLICK HERE.

The Evolution of Modern Humans

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Chris Stringer’s new book, Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth, attempts to reconcile the age-old conflict between the “Multiregional” and “Out of Africa” hypotheses of Modern Human origins. Stringer has long been identified with the “Out of Africa” hypothesis, and his criticism of the Multiregional model pretty much still hold. In the Multiregional model, different groups of a human ancestor, i.e., Homo erectus (and friends) existed over a large region of the earth (Africa and Eurasia) and different populations of that ancestral populations evolved in parallel to become different groups of humans, sometimes regarded as different races. In the Out of Africa model, the same hominids would have been spread around the world (the evidence for that is incontrovertible) but only one population, an African one, became “fully modern” and they replaced all the other groups with varying levels of interaction.

It is important to mention at this point that a third hypothesis, often classified as a subset of the Mutiregional model, had been proposed by C. Loring Brace. In this model a large continuous ancestral population was transformed regionally. The use of fire, Brace claimed, was invented in East Asia, and this transformed hominds in a certain way, and the use of improved projectile spears was invented in Africa, transforming those individuals in different ways. Specifically, the East Asians got smaller teeth and the Africans got more gracile bodies. These two transformations spread from their centers and overlapped each other and eventually transformed the entire global population.

Stringer’s new model isn’t like Braces in detail, but does account for the evidence better than both the Multiregional and Out of Africa models, assuming that evidence is sufficient to even develop a story for the rise of Modern Humans. Stringer still has a basal Modern Human form coming out of Africa, but then there is considerable interaction with extant non-Modern Human populations during which technologies, other aspects of culture, and genes, are exchanges. The results R us.

As you know, I’ve got my own theories about the origin of Modern Humans. I see the evidence of modern looking technology in Souther Africa quiet a bit before any evidence of symbolic behavior (i.e., the Fauresmith culture as documented by Peter Beaumont and others). A group of us led by Richard Wrangham published the idea that fire was controlled by early Homo and this transformed an asutralopith (roughly) like creature into Homo Erectus. By the time we get to the last interglaical, there is pretty good evidence of a very nearly modern human in Southern Africa and elsewhere on that continent. This, however does not obviate the idea of later spread and interaction with other populations, in accord with recent evidence from the genetics.

I don’t think we are there yet. I think we have a very coarse resolution and we are looking at a fairly fine tuned problem. Having said that, I would recommend Stringer’s book as an excellent window on the current thinking that does not privilege genetics (as is so often done these days in the larger discussion, because of the spectacular genetic finds) and incorporates both old and new evidence from physical and archaeological remains.

It is possible that I could assign this in an upcoming human evolution class. It is a good, easy read yet full of data and stuff. As one would expect form Chris Stringer.

Evolutionary Psychology: Careful, some practitioners may be carrying a kitchen knife!

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Darwinian Psychology, or really, any “Psychology” that claims to be science, will operate under the assumption that the human brain, as an organ, has arrived at its modern form through the process of evolution, which includes a certain amount of design through Natural Selection. It does not take that much additional sophistication to realize that the human brain is not only good at, but absolutely requires for typical functioning, a great deal of learning. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the typical human brain functions as it does because of information provided by the genes that were shaped by evolutionary forces and information provided via learning, from some combination of culture and personal experience, which by the way, could also be subject to Darwinian selection (and includes the behaviors generated by other human brains, which in turn, were subject to Darwinian selection).

A simplified model for the development of typical behavior in humans might include these elements:

1) Behavior that emerges no matter what because genes make that happen. If you want to go see some of that, sneak up behind a friend and poke them with a sharp object. They will let out a primal sound and jump. They didn’t need to learn that.

2) Behavior that would not be observed at all were it not for enculturation or learning in the individual. If you want to see some of that, check out the languages people speak. Regardless of how language itself emerges in individuals, one is not genetically programmed just to speak French. One learns one’s language, and the language one uses is a very important behavior.

3) Behavior that is only “normal” (normative in antro-speak) or “typical” when it develops as a combination of those two things (canalized learning). This is a bit harder to explore. Looking at language in a different way than above might be one. Another might be looking at individuals with an upbringing that deprived them of the usual cultural inputs, like some of the classic “wild child” examples.

(I’m avoiding defining what “behavior” is to allow this discussion to fit into one blog post!)

This is basic Evolutionary Biology. A lot of people think that what I just described is Evolutionary Psychology. If it is, then Evolutionary Psychology has broadened its mission considerably, which would be fine. But Evolutionary Psychology is more narrowly defined than this. Specifically, Evolutionary Psychology assumes the existence of “modules” in the brain, mainly in the cerebrum (but there is no reason for them to not involve other brain structures) that are distinct neural systems that allow individual humans to carry out specific behaviors. From Cosmides and Tooby’s Primer on Evolutionary Psychology:

We have all these specialized neural circuits because the same mechanism is rarely capable of solving different adaptive problems. For example, we all have neural circuitry designed to choose nutritious food on the basis of taste and smell – circuitry that governs our food choice. But imagine a woman who used this same neural circuitry to choose a mate. She would choose a strange mate indeed (perhaps a huge chocolate bar?). To solve the adaptive problem of finding the right mate, our choices must be guided by qualitatively different standards than when choosing the right food, or the right habitat. Consequently, the brain must be composed of a large collection of circuits, with different circuits specialized for solving different problems. You can think of each of these specialized circuits as a mini-computer that is dedicated to solving one problem. Such dedicated mini-computers are sometimes called modules. There is, then, a sense in which you can view the brain as a collection of dedicated mini-computers – a collection of modules. There must, of course, be circuits whose design is specialized for integrating the output of all these dedicated mini-computers to produce behavior. So, more precisely, one can view the brain as a collection of dedicated mini-computers whose operations are functionally integrated to produce behavior.

While some of these behaviors might be in some form general to mammals (or primates or vertebrates or some other taxonomic group) they only count as proper modules if they exist in humans as human-specific capacities that are adaptations each shaped by a particular “environment of evolutionary adaptiveness,” altered over time through natural selection, to function a certain way. To be very clear: The functioning of these modules is primarily determined by neural systems that are specified by genes that were, in turn, shaped by natural selection.

The gasp and jump behavior noted above would be a bad example of a “human behavior” for this sort of study because although there are certainly human aspects to it, it is mainly a more general behavior. Try it with your cat and see what happens. A great example from Evolutionary Psychology would be cheater detection. Even if the detection of “cheating” behavior might be found in non-human animals, humans seem to do this in unique human ways. One study that supports and exemplifies this (which I’m a bit familiar with because I helped with it) compared human ability to solve a basic logic problem under different conditions. Briefly, humans were given two different problems, both with the same underlying logic and with the same logically determined answer, but framed in very different contexts. In one setup, the humans were asked to solve the problem in the context of an esoteric filing problem that a file clerk might encounter. In the other context the humans were asked to evaluate the honesty of individuals trying to get a drink at a bar, from the point of view of the bartender. In both cases there would have been an exhaustive, multi-step solution (such as asking everybody for their ID no matter what, or looking in every single file folder to see if everything was filed correctly) but there was also a clear and unambiguous least-step most efficient solution (ask only certain people for their ID, or look in only certain file folders), and the test subjects were asked to provide that efficient solution. In the case of the filing problem, people were shown to be really bad at finding the solution. In the case of the more human problem, where subjects were being asked to asses the chance that people were lying, they did rather well. This suggests that humans have an ability, built into the brain, to handle lying and cheating by other humans. (Here is an example of a recent related study.)

Evolutionary Psychology says that humans evolved to do this during a period of “evolutionary adaptiveness,” living in social groups where detecting cheaters conferred a fitness advantage, or not doing so caused a fitness disadvantage. Moreover, this capacity exists as a brain “module” that develops in individuals by virtue of genetic programming, with the genes doing that developmental programming having been under selection during that period.

An alternative explanation … but still evolutionary and still scientific … might be that the ability to detect cheating emerged in individuals who, over their lifetime, experienced the need to do so and learned, and/or received from their culture through the processes of enculturation, the ability to do so. In this explanation there may well have been gene-level selection to facilitate some sort of data processing or reasoning, and perhaps most importantly, learning, without which individuals would not be very good at developing a cheating detection mechanism.

In both cases, one could say that there is a “mental module” … a neural structure in the brain that is good at doing some thing. In both cases one could say that the module emerged as part of the evolutionary process. Indeed, I regard the result of this and similar experience as very strong evidence that there are modules in human brains that are really good at doing certain things, and that are sufficiently specialized that they are also bad at doing similar but in some sense “unnatural” versions of the same thing. In an Evolutionary Psychology version, the module was mostly built neurologically because of genetically specified development. In a more general Darwinian Psychology, brains are selected (though evolutionary process) to be good at learning how to do this sort of thing.

One way to test this would be to raise a group of babies in a cultural environment in which it was not necessary to ever detect cheaters, but where day to day activities of import required being really good at file clerking. If Evolutionary Psychology is right and Darwinian Psychology is wrong, then the adults that emerge from that experience will test the same way on the previously described experiment (or maybe a little different, but the pattern would be the same). If Darwinian Psychology is right and Evolutionary Psychology is wrong, then when confronted with a test for cheater detection vs file clerking, the test subjects will excel at file clerking and be lousy cheater detectors.

It is possible, of course, that both things happen: there could be genetically determined human-unique modules AND a set of general learning capacities.

ResearchBlogging.orgIn fact, much of the better research in Evolutionary Psychology addresses the potential combination or overlap between these developmentally distinct explanations. A recent paper by Fessler et.al is a great example of this. The paper, “Weapons Make the Man (Larger): Formidability Is Represented as Size and Strength in Humans,” tests the idea that when assessing the degree to which one should regard a foe as formidable, humans narrow down their assessment into a generalized variable that is very likely to have emerged as a cognitive tool during our Old World Primate/Ape ancestry: Size. They conclude “… knowing that a man possesses a gun or a kitchen knife leads people to assess him as larger and more muscular. In conjunction with prior work, our studies thus provide strong preliminary evidence that the conceptual dimensions of size and strength are employed to represent relative formidability.” To me, that is an excellent example of a study of evolved human capacities, done by a team of researchers who call themselves “Evolutionary Psychologists,” which does not ignore, but rather incorporates, the most likely scenario for the evolution of the human mind; human brains are the product of millions of years of evolution and specific human capacities emerge as a conjuncture of innate abilities and drives (attention to “bigness”) and individual culturally mediated experiences (understanding of the artifacts of violence) combined and fine tuned by forces that are worthy of further exploration.

(I would note that the lead author on this study, Dan Fessler, would be one of the first authors I’d point someone to whom might be interested in reading some “good Evolutionary Psychology.”)

“Evolutionary Psychology” can be viewed as distinct form a more general “Darwinian Psychology” which simply says that the brain is shaped by evolutionary forces, or a “Behavioral Biology” that might derive from both human and non-human primate studies, which could assert that typical human behaviors are the result of an unspecified (but knowable) combination of evolved genetically determined capacities or drives, and learning. hese are very different ideas, but many people conflate or confuse them.

Brains evolved. Sometimes, when criticizing Evolutionary Psychology, as I’ve done now and then and as Rebecca Watson recently did, those who call themselves “Evolutionary Psychologist” react in an interesting way. They claim that the criticisms are unscientific. They may label the critics as “creationists” or “science denialists.” I some cases, a defender of the subfield may even resort to cherry picking among the perceived attacker’s prior writings to falsely show that they hold certain beliefs. This sort of reaction has been observed of others who undergo criticism by people who really do hold similar fundamental views, but who do not agree in total with a particular position. I wonder if this reaction is a human universal of some sort. Perhaps, even, a module. It would be interesting to see this developed as a research project.

Fessler, D., Holbrook, C., & Snyder, J. (2012). Weapons Make the Man (Larger): Formidability Is Represented as Size and Strength in Humans PLoS ONE, 7 (4) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0032751

See also:

?EP: The fundamental failure of the evolutionary psychology premise

?EP: The fundamental failure of the evolutionary psychology premise

Is evolutionary psychology worthless?

Reason.tv: Stone Age Minds – A conversation with evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby

Carl Safina: The View From Lazy Point

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Carl Safina is in some ways a modern Rachel Carson, an ecologist who writes excellent stuff about ecology. The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World is his latest work. I saw him recently at the Gustavus Nobel conference where he gave this talk (the actual talk starts at about 9:00, following an epic-length introduction which I’m sure is very nice but you may want to skip):

He’s a great writer and a great speaker. The book is about nature, ecology, the world, etc. under current conditions of environmental threat including climate change. In the area of natural history writing, is may be the best book to come out this year. Also, the Kindle (or other eBook) edition of this book should be quite satisfying because it has only a few illustrations (including a couple of maps) but they are all line drawings and should do fine in that format.

You know that we’ve recently spoken of chickens on this blog (as we sometimes do). Here I’ll simply note that Carl, as a writer, has this interesting quirk … during those times when he is not writing but is thinking about writing, he goes to his back yard and stares at the chickens for a while.

The Natural and Unnatural Histories of the Chicken

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I liked Chickens: Their Natural and Unnatural Histories by Janet Lembke even if it is annoyingly unscholarly in places where it should be (assertions of fact are frequently made with zero or poor referencing). As far as I can tell, the writing is accurate in its coverage of all things Chicken. Chickens in science, chickens in stories, chickens in the back yard, chickens in history, chickens in evolution, chickens in art, chickens in mythology, chickens in medicine, chickens in Medieval times, chickens in Renaissance times, chickens all the way down.

If you are a chicken person you should have this book. If you are The Chickenman, you should be happy with some roadkillicon.

This is not a manual for how to own and operate a chicken, but if you do happen to own and operate chickens you’ll find the literature and tradition exposed here enriching.

Lembke is a skillful writer and has quite a few books of non fiction, as well as translations of classic literature, behind her. I was hoping she would some day soon write a book about swine. The modern-classic overlap, interesting origin stories, and role in many areas of art and life of chicken is paralleled by, perhaps eclipsed by, the not very humble pig. Just sayin’

Finally, in case you were wondering about the origin of the chicken, click here.

Sciency Christmas Gifts for the Whole Family

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I’d like to call a truce on the War on Christmas. The true meaning of this holiday is, of course, the presents, and pursuant to that I have some suggestions for you in case you are stuck.

Dr Who Presents

The Doctor Who TARDIS Cookie Jar is a must have because is is a Dr. Who Thing, it is a TARDIS and it is for holding Cookies.

This particular cookie jar has light and sound effects. And, if you run out of cookies it is relatively easy for you and your companion to go back in time and get more.

This TARDIS does not come with cookies.

TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

Speaking of TARDIS, The Amazing Disappearing TARDIS Mug is a perennial present.

If you gave this to someone last year, consider giving it again. Chances are, by now, someone put theirs in the dish washer and melted off the magic coating that makes the TARDIS disappear into an alternative Time and Space Dimension when hot beverage is poured into it.

No home is complete without a Dalek. I recommend a Dalek alarm clock.

The Underground Toys Doctor Who Dalek Projector Alarm Clock is a particularly fancy model. It projects the time on the ceiling. The alarm itself is, as you would expect, unique. The clock shouts “Exterminate … Exterminate….”

Just for fun you might consider throwing in a set of Dalek Blue Prints TV Poster.

Finally, The Tenth Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver is a must have for any Dr. Who fan. From the Manufacturer:

Let the Doctor help you get all of your home and office repairs done with this Electronic Sonic Screwdriver! The Doctor’s handy-dandy sonic screwdriver is the epitome of multifunctional gizmos. Whether it’s driving a screw, picking a lock, or disabling an opponent, this amazing implement seems to exhibit the precise capability required by its owner at the time. Now this marvelous gadget can be yours! The sonic screwdriver measures 8-inches tall x 1-inch wide. This Doctor Who Electronic Sonic Screwdriver Replica features button-activated light and sound effects. It includes a hidden ultraviolet pen and UV light that reveals your secret writing, as well as a spare standard ink nib. Look who’s Doctor Who now! Requires 3x “AG13” button-cell batteries, included. The sonic screwdriver is a fictional tool in the British sci-fi television series Doctor Who. Its most common function is to operate virtually any lock, mechanical or electronic, and thus open doors for escape or exploration. It has also been used for repairing equipment, as an offensive weapon, and occasionally even to drive screws. Like the TARDIS, it has become one of the icons of the program and is closely associated with the Doctor.

Space Science Presents

There are myriad space science presents including devices to project stars on your ceiling, and of course, telescopes and such.

Here I just want to point out two interesting choices. First is The Magic School Bus: The Secrets of Space kit.

Starring Ms. Frizzle, kids get to make a night-vision flashlight, design a solar system mobile, a constellation box, and xonstellation cards. This is mostly for younger kids, maybe 3rd through 6th grade.

For older kids and the whole family, there is Monopoly Night Sky:

Can’t really go wrong with that. Julia would probably like one of those.

Life Science Presents

For someone who has recently acquired (or is just getting) a microsocpe, consider something like the AmScope 100 Piece Assorted Specimen Collection for Home School Students, Basic Biology Science Glass Prepared Microscope Slides (Set E). This incudes animal and plant tissues, insect parts, etc. all prepared in a cool wooden box. Sure, it is good to make your own slides, but it is also nice to have a set of slides with diverse objects so you know what a nice set of slides looks like. This particular one is normally about $250 but is on sale for way less as I write this.

I’ve been looking at USB digital microcopes such as the Learning Resources Twist Flexible Digital Microscope. They seem to vary a lot in terms of features but there are several models of digital USB scopes that would be great. You should look through a variety and find one that seems to be made to do what you were thinking you would do with it and then check the reviews to see if the particular one you are looking at is bogus, great, or somewhere in between.

Cameras make the best presents

Just so you know, THIS, or a similar model, is the camera you should get your loved one if you really truly love them. I’ve not seen THIS ONE in action but it looks really cool and is orange. Both have really nice lenses.

True Geek Presents

If you know someone who messes around with their Linux or even Windows computer a lot, get them a 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive (SSD) along with a cheap conversion kit so they can put the new drive in either their laptop or desktop.

If you know someone who makes podcasts and is currently using a cheap mic like the one that came built into their computer, get them a Samson Meteor Mic USB Studio Microphone (Cardioid) (highly recommended by many) or even the Platinum Edition of the same mic.

Ultimate Expensive Gift for the Apple Lover

Do you know someone who has an iPod Touch and really likes it, but does not have an iPad? Consider the Apple Ipad Min.

Sean Carroll, Marie-Claire Shanahan, and the Higgs

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I’m pretty sure that for a long time people who were supposed to know what they were talking about were explaining the Higgs Boson wrong. This led other people to think of it the wrong way as well. I’m not even speaking here of the whole “god particle” thing. That’s a whole nuther, equally annoying, issue. But eventually, the real story started to get around and I think it is possible to get a reasonable idea of what the thing is without being a theoretical physicist or particle expert.

Let me try. Here’s my current version of the Higgs Boson. There seems to be three things to know about it:

1) It is a continuous field that gives rise to a particle under certain circumstances. Sort of like how air is continuous (within our atmosphere) and occasionally gives rise to a snowflake (screaming rants from physics grad student blogerinos about how horrid the snowflake metaphor is in 3…2…1…0…)

2) One of the things the Higgs does is to impart the property of mass to certain, but by no means all, other particles. That these particles having mass, in turn, causes them to interact with other particles the way they do. Ultimately, this means that without the Higgs particle-field thingie, there would be no atoms, or at least, no atoms other than Helium, and I’m not so sure about Helium.

3) The Higgs Boson appears to exist based on this year’s science achievement.

Sean Carroll is two people, a physicist and a biologist. One of them, the Physicist (Sean M. Carroll), is two people: An actual physicist and an excellent science communicator. Or, should I rephrase: The ability to communicate effectively about science gives scientists the property of mass. And by mass, I mean relevance. Sean Carroll is massive.

Marie-Claire Shanahan is also, I’m sure, two or three people at least, and is an outstanding communicator in her own right. As a science education expert, Marie-Claire occasionally subs for Desiree Schell on Skeptically Speaking, and this Sunday, tomorrow, Marie-Claire will interview Sean Carroll about the Higgs Boson.

This, dear reader, is your best chance to understand what the heck the Higgs Boson really is, other than reading Sean’s new book, The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World.

I am ensaddeded that I will not be home tomorrow evening at the time of the show and thus can’t listen to the live-before-an-Internet Audience production and participate in the chat room, but you can. I’ll catch the podcast when it comes out later in the week.

Have a massive day.

Lego Adventure

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The LEGO Adventure Book, Vol. 1: Cars, Castles, Dinosaurs & More! by Megan Rothrock is primarily for people who have been messing around with LEG for, say, less than 10 years or so, especially those who are new at it and seek both inspiration and guidance in such daunting tasks as making a scale two engine turboprop airplane or an entire Lego town.

The book guides the reader step by step through 25 exemplar models, each of which is fairly elaborate, and demonstrated with more basic information close to 200 other models to illustrate variation. Despite the name of the book and a fairly high degree of silliness in some parts (the Lego figures have a few things to say) the 200 page volume actually has a lot of information in it. The copy I have is hard cover and has thick glossy paper which means that when I open it to a certain page it stays open at that page. That may seem like a small thing but for a guide book for something you need both hands to do, that is a key feature.

To give you an idea of what the book covers, I’ve copied the table of contents:

  • Chapter 1: Building the Idea Lab
  • Chapter 2: A LEGO Town
  • Chapter 3: Hot Rods and Cool Rides
  • Chapter 4: From Below!
  • Chapter 5: The Sky’s the Limit
  • Chapter 6: The Turtle Factory
  • Chapter 7: Starfighters
  • Chapter 8: Mighty Mecha
  • Chapter 9: Medieval Village
  • Chapter 10: Triassic Park
  • Chapter 11: Making New Friends
  • Chapter 12: Full Steam Ahead
  • Chapter 13: Steampunk
  • Chapter 14: A LEGO Legend

The author, Megan Rothrock, was a set designer for Lego, and her displays have been see at ComicCon and other places. Rumors that she is a member of The Cult of LEGO are unfounded. Well, probably not.

Are you a feminist activist? Thank you.

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The other day, PZ Myers noted in a Blog post the remembrance of the École Polytechnique massacre in which Marc Lépine hunted down and killed 14 women, injured another 10 women and a handful of men, as his way of striking out against feminism. To be clear, he was hunting down and killing feminists because he felt that feminism had caused his application to the school to be rejected.

PZ made the rather bold implication that the MRA’s, anti-feminists and slymepitters of today’s Skeptic and Secular movement were part of the same entity … cultural manifestation, way of thinking, whatever … as Marc Lépine. He is right, of course. Naturally, as Chris Clarke has pointed out, there was push back. Was PZ being fair to misogynysts? Well, no, and why should he be? But that’s not what I really want to talk about here. Here, I want to talk about something closely related, including but not limited to the visceral, limibic gasp a friend of mine let out when realizing for the first time, on reading PZ’s post, that the École Polytechnique massacre had even happened. That horrific event was before her time and she didn’t know. Continue reading Are you a feminist activist? Thank you. →

Another Year, Another Almanac

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A while back I raised the question: Is there still room on the shelf for an almanac? in reference to the World Almanac for Kids. I thought it might be cool for some kids of the right age, if nothing else to demonstrate them (however untrue it may be) that there are still some things you can learn from that are not on line. Now, I’ve got a copy of The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2013. This is the adult version.

At first I was a little disappointed that the front cover of the 2013 Almanac has a picture of Mitt Romney (he’s so 2012) and the Olympics (they happened a year or two ago, right?) but then I realized that this book actually is supposed to have “current” facts, so the last election, last olympics, etc. are all part of that.

In fact, let’s go right ahead and try to look something up. The Olympics, for instance.

The front page of the table of contents has “sports” and right down below that is “Olympic Games” … it will be on page 856. That was faster than Googling. I write down the page number because our species has lost the ability to remember two and three digit sequences of numerals. I thumb through to page 856 and there, on old fashioned newspaper print in fine ink are the details of the Olympics from way back when (in the late 19th century) to the present, over something like 22 pages. Authoritative, accurate, well organized. I almost feel like I am in The Wikipedia but I got here without having to wade through woo and crap and other flotsam and jetsam of the Internet.

That was fun. Now let’s try another one. What percentage of Americans have internet access and how has this changed over time? The index sends me right to page 394. Only 82% at home in 2012, the last year for which there are data, up from 67% in 2000, the first year for which there are data. Now, we use the “look both ways” rule to see what else we have. It also says that the average number of hours per week spent on line at home has gone from 9.4 to 18.3 over that time, peaking in 2009 at 19. Elsewhere in the same section we see a breakdown of internet activities, a list of “informative and useful websites” such as the Federal Register, various library tools, and Wolfram Alpha. The previous several pages have data on INternet Lino (LOL), international data on Internet use, information on Internet Addresses, and more.

OK, that went well too.

The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2013 is sort of like the internet for people who like books, but it is also like a particular site on the Internet that has a roughly even level of authority and detail about a wide range of things. Some information will be easier to find and make use of in this context (until you try to cut and paste it) than, say, The Wikipedia or other one line sources, while other information may be more limiting. I suppose it is all a matter of personal choices. A must, I think, if you are planing to be on Jeopardy.

Be a Lego Stud: The Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide (new edition)

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The other day I reviewed a guide to using the very high end Lego Technic system. Here, I’ve got a book that addresses the needs of those at the other end of the Lego Spectrum: The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide

By “other end of the spectrum” I do not mean unsophisticated or easy, I simply mean no electrical gizmos and not too many gears and things. For example, you might use this guide to build a very realistic scale model of the Space Shuttle or a cool Train Station with People waiting for the Train model. Or, perhaps, a house with a chimney. But a really cool one. Continue reading Be a Lego Stud: The Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide (new edition) →