hate-filled rants
tetrapodzoology | June 20, 2011There's something they don't tell you about freelance writing. It's about all the fails: the many, many projects that get pitched, worked on and made into proper presentations that then get sent to book fairs, interested companies and so on, but ultimately explode on the launch pad, or die a slow, lingering death. I don't know if it's that I'm especially unlucky, or if it's that I've pitched an unusually high number of books, or if it's that I've genuinely worked on a high number of projects that were never destined to succeed but, whatever, I've now worked on loads of failed book projects.…
tetrapodzoology | January 23, 2011Welcome to part II of my musings on the 2010 blogging year. You'll need to have read the first part to make sense of it. The article you're reading now is extraordinarily long and I'd normally break up a piece of this length into two, three or even more separate articles. This year I want to get the birthday stuff out of the way as quickly as possible, however, so bear with me. Hey, you don't HAVE to read any of it. And so, off we go...
One of the bigger Tet Zoo-relevant issues of the year was the publication in September of Tetrapod Zoology Book One (Naish 2010a). Already I've seen several…
tetrapodzoology | December 7, 2010My recent brief mention of Thomas Huxley (in connection with the Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Saurians: A Historical Perspective volume) reminded me to look anew at this Tet Zoo ver 1 post from 2006...
Here's a little known fact. Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882), the most important biologist of all time, did not spend his entire life as an old man. I despise stereotypes, especially those that are totally erroneous, and whenever I see a picture of 'old man Darwin' I wonder: why is it that so many of our most important scientists are consistently portrayed as old men? Don't get me wrong, I…
tetrapodzoology | December 17, 2009
You're being interviewed for a TV documentary, and that documentary will focus on your special area of expertise. For the purposes of this article, let's pretend that you're an expert on sauropod dinosaurs. While being interviewed, you're asked about the possible function of a peculiar and enigmatic structure: the cavernous expansion present in the sauropod sacral region. As everyone knows, the idea that the sacral expansion might have functioned as a sort of 'second brain' was once mooted in the literature, and - because it was a fun idea that jived well with the well-known fact that…
tetrapodzoology | September 12, 2009
Those of us who publish technical research papers like to see our work cited by our colleagues. Indeed, it's integral to one's success as a researcher (whatever 'success' means) that others cite your work, in whatever context. You might not like to see the publication of a stinging attack that demolishes your cherished hypothesis and shows how your approach and data analysis (and maybe overall philosophy, intellect and ability to write) are flawed, but the fact is that someone has at least read, and is citing, your work... and that's still a sort of success. These days - sad to say - the '…
tetrapodzoology | July 14, 2009
I have to say I really hate it when I see a blog post with an interesting title that concerns a complicated subject, only to find - on going to all that trouble of moving my fingers, clicking on the link, and waiting all of three or so seconds for the page to load - that the author has played the dumbass, and has instead reeled you in with a whole one line of text, or a picture, or something equally lame. Yes, I really, really hate that.
On an unrelated subject, do books really have to be so ~ucking expensive? I mean, seriously, who sets the prices? I'm going through a phase of buying…
tetrapodzoology | February 13, 2009
Those of you who notice such things might have wondered where I've been over the last few days: after all, I'm now pretty much in the habit of posting to Tet Zoo every day. I've been 'absent' due to internet problems (now resolved, for the time being at least)... though, yeah, I've got other excuses too. As a result, my plans have been temporarily derailed, but I'll try and get back to speed ASAP. Meanwhile, the adjacent image shows one of the things I've been busy with this week. Would like to tell you the whole story, but can't.
tetrapodzoology | December 29, 2008
Over the course of my research career I have, like so many scientists, accrued a ridiculous list of 'semi-complete', 'near-complete' and 'essentially complete' research projects, all of which are sitting there, awaiting that extra investment of time and effort required to get them to the submission stage. A colleague recently accused me of being a lazy bastard because I have still not published a paper on a specimen that I've had in my care for over five years now: it's a new small theropod from the Santana Formation, definitely distinct from the other named Santana Formation theropods (…