Category Archives: Uncategorized

Birdish adaptations in dinosaurs: Aerosteon riocoloradensis

Uncategorized

In the process of writing a post on bird evolution, it occurred to me that it might be helpful to re-post something I wrote a couple of years ago covering research reported by Paul Sereno about new fossil material from a theropod known as em>Aerosteon riocoloradensis. When I went to look at my original post, I was reminded that there was quite a bit of other writing on the blogosphere (and elsewhere on the Intertubes) about this find. Here, I’d like to give you the bottom line (insofar as what I wanted people to know when referring back to my repost) and then, in the interest of both full scientific disclosure and prurient fanning of the flames of professional flamosity (though I quickly add that this second outcome is incidental, not my intent) I’ll provide a summary of the blogospheric discussion along with my repost, and links for you to follow.

First, the bottom line: em>Aerosteon riocoloradensis is a dinosaur that had a respiratory system like that found today in birds, in the sense that it seems to have been adapted to maximize the flow of air across gas-exchange surfaces (like what we have in the lungs) in order to be super-good at aerobics. It seems that the various experts (to whom I refer below) have various … ahem … bones to pick with each other but all agree on the basic fact that this dinosaur breathed somewhat like a bird. Remarkably, this dinosaur is NOT a bird ancestor. It is on another branch of the dinosaurs that were related to birds, but not ancestral to birds. And that is the point I planned to make in my post on bird evolution. (See: Are Birds Really Dinosaurs? at 10,000 Birds.)

And now, on with the show:
Continue reading Birdish adaptations in dinosaurs: Aerosteon riocoloradensis →

This and that.

Uncategorized

While I’m busy in Saint Paul doing this, I think you should have a look at this and this, because summer is just around the corner. Later, I’ll be working on a post for this because I do one every four weeks. How time flies. I’ve already done two of them (this and this).

Oh, I bought a bottle of air to disperse some of the dust while I’m doing this, and they wanted my ID! I had no idea that people snorted air.

Don’t forget, this is coming up soon, as is this. And pretty soon we’ll be doing a new one of these.

And don’t forget about the eclipse.

Speaking of which…

Gay Judges should NOT be allowed to rule on Gay Laws

Uncategorized

I agree that a gay judge should not rule on a gay marriage issue. He’s biased. He’s gay, and in a gay relationship and will therefore be biased in favor of gay rights.

Of course, non-gay judges should never be allowed to rule on issues of straight marriage or other private matters, legislatures should not be allowed to introduce legislation limiting or proscribing behavior related to gayosity or straightosity related to anyone like themselves, and voters should never, ever be allowed to vote on things that have anything to do with individual relationships, sexual behavior, sexuality, or anything else private where the voter her/himself could be somehow analogous to the individuals affected by the laws or amendments. And, the inverse must be true as well. A gay judge might be anti-straight, and therefore should never rule on straight-marriage issues, for instance.

The rules I just laid out in the previous paragraph would not apply, of course, to the rare and extreme cases where individuals’ private behaviors cost large amounts of government money or have very negative tangible side effects on others. Squeamishness, moral indignation, annoyance, or modest visual disruption of the landscape do not count as negative tangible side effects except in the possible case of visual disruption of the landscape in national parks.

Opponents of gay marriage are challenging notions of judicial neutrality in a San Francisco courtroom on Monday. They’re arguing that a federal judge who struck down California’s ban on same sex marriage last year was biased because he’s in a same-sex relationship*.

I fully support this initiative, and I hope it progresses and is recognized as case law. The consequences would be astounding. Women would no longer be able to legislate, enforce laws, or rule as judges on, say, abortion rights. Following the inverse principle, neither would men. Issues related to state laws regarding any kind of marriage or probate, if brought to a federal judge, could not be ruled on by judges who are in, or not in, those circumstances. Only judges who are (not were, but are) foster children could rule on laws about foster children. Or not. Only Judges who have Down’s Syndrome could rule on, say, execution of offenders with Downs. But they would not be allowed to do so. And so on.

Furthermore, the sexual orientation, karyotype, and other personal information of each and every judge will have to be determined and perhaps placed on the judge’s bench using some sort of symbol so everyone knows what the potential biases are if any issue related to that state of being comes up in any courtroom, ever, anywhere, from now on.

That is all, you are now free to return to reality.

Netflix Breaks Self, Annoys Everyone

Uncategorized

Even though some time back Netflix fixed their interface exactly as I wanted them to do it, and within hours after I asked them to (see this), they have now developed a new web interface to their site that many people appear to hate. I tend to agree with the haters.

What I found is that when I view it with Google Chrome the site breaks in about a half second and I can’t see a thing. Then, when it comes back it looks much like their on-Roku inteface, which is OK, but requires mouse movements that I find unnatural and annoying. And, mostly, impossible to use. At this point, it would almost be easier to re-up with Blockbuster and physically go there to see and rent the movies. It would take less time to do that than to navigate through this new Netflix interface.

My new wishlist for Netflix interface: 1) A CLI and 2)