Nonsense
laelaps | April 2, 2008Although it started as part of holiday traditions in India, elephant polo has grown into a more regularly played sport, even having its own official association, the World Elephant Polo Association. Only Indian elephants (Elephas maximus) are used in the games, and the clip below shows the somewhat chaotic nature of the game;
laelaps | March 28, 2008Brian at Clastic Detritus want to know what you listen to while writing (and ReBecca chimes in, too). My answer, unexciting as it may be, is "The various clicking and whirring of my computer." I occasionally listen to music while writing, but since I don't have much instrumental or classical music, my playlist is usually more distracting than anything else. If I do listen to music I usually put on my headphones to block some other noise out, as it's easier to ignore something familiar than something new and annoying.
If I recall correctly, though, even classical music can send me off-track at…
laelaps | March 27, 2008Crappy anime, claymation, and hand puppets? Watch if you dare...
From the series "Kyoryu Tankentai Born Free."
laelaps | March 20, 2008
This has to be seen to be believed; the creationists behind Expelled are so threatened by PZ that he was threatened with arrest if he attempted to see the film, but Richard Dawkins made it in without a problem. I'm sure the internet will be a-buzz with whatever Dawkins has to say about the film when he eventually posts his thoughts (the news about what happened to PZ is already making the rounds), but I can't imagine why the producer of Expelled singled out PZ. (Also of interest, "Nomad" has posted some thoughts on another recent screening of the film.)
And now for something completely…
laelaps | March 19, 2008Last night I had one of those ideas that made my eyes go wide, wake my wife up, and try to explain what was bouncing around in my brain before it skittered away into the recesses of my thoughts. I think I was able to grab a fragment of the idea, but the more I turned it over in my head the more I realized that it represents a much bigger problem than I originally anticipated. I was hoping to have a blog post up about it today, but it's going to require a bit more work than I expected.
In the meantime, I suppose I can tell you this. The idea occurred to me while thinking about the diversity of…
laelaps | March 19, 2008...but I couldn't help but laugh when I saw the following headline;
Bush: Iraq has been 'longer and harder' than anticipated
[Story]
laelaps | March 14, 2008Ah, spring break... I don't have the ability to go anywhere warm, but I am getting a new desktop computer that will soon allow me to store my mass of technical papers, work on my book a bit more, and play some World of Warcraft from time to time. I've got a few books coming during the next week, too, so even though I still have to work my day job I'm going to try and be as productive as possible on my day(s) off over break.
And now, for no other reason than the fact that I think they're cool, here's a video of a leopard seal (dining on a gentoo penguin);
laelaps | March 13, 2008Things will probably be a little light here today. I've got two midterm exams, both of which I'm dreading, so it's cram, cram, cram until the last minute for me. Hence I don't expect to post much (if anything) today, but hopefully I'll be back to normal by tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the spiffy new banner, courtesy of Michael Skrepnick.
laelaps | March 7, 2008There must be some unwritten rule that if you're going to face off against a prehistoric predator, you'd better make sure there's some heavy machinery nearby to even the odds [from an episode of Primeval];
The first time such a confrontation between "monster" and machine on film (that I know of, anyway) was in the film Dinosaurus!;
More recently the low-budget gore-fest Carnosaur pulled the same trick;
Of course, nothing says cheesy b-movie like recycling action sequences; Carnosaur 2 rehashed the climax of the first film using a forklift (Beware: Clip contains gratuitous gore near…
laelaps | March 7, 2008[Update; I've now received all the papers (thank you all!), but I'll leave the list up here just in case anyone else is interested in tracking these down for their own interests.]
In the process of writing a chapter on the evolution of birds (and, therefore, dinosaurs) I've found that there is a much larger body of literature on the topic than I had previously accounted for. I've got a few books on the topic and have downloaded dozens of papers, but some of the most important papers to my vision for the chapter are beyond my grasp. Many of these are older papers by Richard Owen and T.H.…
laelaps | February 28, 2008The other day I mentioned that I was thinking of putting up a new banner for this blog, and although a number of you have said you thought Knight's painting should stay up, I still felt the need to shake things up a bit. Paleo-artist Mike Skrepnick has kindly let me crop his painting of some Deinonychus catching a group of Tenontosaurus by surprise, and I like the new effect. The old banner isn't going way though; as soon as I figure out how to make the banners rotate I'll bring it back (along with some other new ones based upon some old paleontological artwork). Thanks, Mike!
laelaps | February 27, 2008I've had a thin-section of Charles R. Knight's Laelaps up for a while (essentially over a year if you count my old blog) and now I feel like it's time for a change. I was originally thinking of making a banner from one of my photographs, but that didn't seem to be a good solution (too familiar and a bit bland if I'm going to keep doing PotD). What I'm thinking of, then, is commissioning someone to make a new banner for Laelaps.
The new banner would have to be 756 pixels long by 93 pixels high (the banner I'm now using can be found here if you need stand-alone comparison), so unfortunately…
laelaps | February 22, 2008I'm sorry I still haven't put up my post about dinosaurs & mythology as yet; I've had a bit of a stressful/depressing day and I just wasn't up to the task of finishing it. I'll definitely finish it tomorrow, however, just in time for the next installment of The Boneyard over at Amanda's place.
In the meantime, I thought I would put up something frivolous since it's a Friday night. Here's 10 videos for 10 random songs currently in circulation on my iPod shuffle (feel free to carry this on as a meme if it suits you);
Reel Big Fish - "Take On Me"
Aerosmith - "Eat the Rich"
SUM 41…
laelaps | February 20, 2008Expert On Anteaters Wasted Entire Life Studying Anteaters
[Via the Onion]
laelaps | February 20, 2008
PZ and Josh may have beat me to the punch, but I agree that this belongs on a t-shirt.
laelaps | February 19, 2008I had something of an interesting experience this afternoon. I stopped into a local Stop & Shop to pick up a new razor and a few other necessities, and because I only a had a few items I decided to use the self check-out. On my way over someone dropped two boxes of cereal on the ground as I was passing by so I bent down, picked them up, and put them in the cart. The person didn't even look at me. It was somewhat bizarre; the person was talking with a friend no more than a foot away, yet it would seem that they didn't hear the box smack the floor, notice me pick it up, or realize that they…
laelaps | February 18, 2008A few days ago I wrote about my experience with an ice storm that hit the city I live in and my experience walking home in it. Things warmed up a little after that, but I was not expecting to wake up and find out that the temperature was 60 degrees Fahrenheit at 6:00 this morning! I wish I had to day off to make the most of the unusually warm weather, but contra to what Phil said a few weeks ago there may yet be an early spring.
laelaps | February 16, 2008Yesterday's brief post about "impostor syndrome" recalled the following Monty Python sketch. I don't think "aggravated student" would be listed as a profession, but at least I'm good at it;
laelaps | February 14, 2008
Many, many more dinosaur-themed Valentines (dino-tines?) can be found here.