Argot Navis

Saw this on BBC News just now. That’s a pretty good eBay score, I’d say. There seems to be no shortage of amber on eBay (most of it made into jewelry, apparently), but I’d imagine that it very rarely contains a previously unknown species. Not too bad for about $40. I’m a bit disappointed about the name, though:

“I had thought it would be rather nice to call it Mindarus ebayi,” said Dr Harrington.

“Unfortunately using flippant names to describe new species is rather frowned upon these days.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I think more new species should have flippant names.

I was looking through the July issue of PLoS Biology today (I was originally looking for this article about birds, which I couldn’t find at the time), and I came across this article, “Across the Curious Parallel of Language and Species Evolution” by John Whitfield. I’ve been curious about the similarities between biological and linguistic evolution since I read Bully for Brontosaurus, and this article talks about some interesting linguistics research at the intersection between the two. Here’s a pretty good quote:

Simon Kirby, also at the University of Edinburgh, thinks that the key biological attribute that allows humans to learn language might not be genetically encoded grammar but vocal learning—the ability to remember and reproduce sequences of sound, which is also seen in songbirds and bats. “We could just be a chimp that can sing,” he says.

Most of us aren’t as hairy, either, but you get the idea.

Saw this on CNN today. Apparently the “Bigfoot” that was found recently in Georgia is a hoax. The research team (note that Richard Klein was not a member) found that it was, uh, made of rubber. Please, try to contain your surprise. I know. We were all pretty sure this one was for real.

This whole thing really makes me wonder. No, I’m not wondering why it is that people are still willing to believe that the proof will actually materialize, long after the eighth time. What I’m wondering is whether it’s really as easy as it sounds. Do you really just have to buy a gorilla suit, steal grandpa’s dentures and gut a possum to get your name all over CNN for a few days? This wasn’t a sophisticated hoax or anything. They really did just stick a Bigfoot costume in the chill chest. Oh well.

In related news, Archaeology Magazine has found their own Bigfoot, and they’re putting him up against Indiana Jones in what I assume is a fight to the death (via). Bigfoot definitely seems to have the advantage, but Indy is really kicking some ass in the polls. Really, though, it isn’t that surprising. Bigfoot isn’t as popular among archaeologists since the controversy surrounding him last year.

I was on the Red Line today, and for the second time in as many weeks, I noticed that one of the maps above the doors was slightly out of date. I really wish that I’d thought to take a picture one of those times, because it’s pretty cool. Perhaps I’ll get lucky and see it a third time.

It’s at least as old as 1980, judging from the fact that the Braintree branch doesn’t actually stop at Braintree. This also means that the northern branch only goes as far as Harvard, and Downtown Crossing is still listed as Washington.

I wonder, though, if this has ever caused anyone to panic for a moment or two? All of the other maps are correct, but couldn’t you see it happening? You know, just for a second.

As promised, I have fixed the links and categories in all of the entries imported from LiveJournal. All of the entries that link to other entries now link here (let me know if you happen to spot any that I’ve missed), and “Uncategorized” is no longer my most used category. So, if you, for some reason, are interested in reading all of my entries about TV or movies, that is now possible.

I’ve also started using tags in addition to categories. As recently as last week, I questioned the value of using both tags and categories, but I have accepted that using both is actually useful. For example, some people might want to look at the entries in which I’ve written about Hostess cakes. You can now do that, and I don’t have to create a new category for all two of those entries. All of the tags are now listed on the right side of the page, in a convenient “cloud,” with the font size of the word corresponding to how many things are tagged with it. Thanks for reading. I promise I’ll write some real entries soon.

I recently had the idea to update my iPod with several songs from quite a lot of artists, rather than whole albums from relatively few artists (these are really the only options you have when your iPod is a beefy 2ish GB). I find that this keeps me more entertained on the way to work, and it also allows me to include artists who otherwise might not have made the cut. Not that those are bad bands, but one has to make some tough choices.

The point of all of this, though, is that this also allowed for the inclusion of some early Nine Inch Nails. You see, when listening to Nine Inch Nails on the Green Line, the loud screeches from the wheels of the remarkable Breda Type 8s actually sound like parts of the song! It’s beautiful. Of course, this calls for further research.

Dan Neil’s review of the Ford Flex in the L.A. Times is a thing of beauty. It was published on July 2nd, but I just read it today, so it’s new to me. The Ford Flex, like most crossovers, is something I have basically no interest in. If I’m going to spend $45,000 (the “as tested” price in that review) to get 24 MPG on the highway, I’m going to at least do it in style. Of course, I’ve never claimed to have very practical taste. The point is, this isn’t a review I enjoyed because I think the car is cool.

So why did I enjoy it? Because it contains what I have to believe is the most circumlocutious description of a car’s styling ever written:

A vivid bit of hyper-design, with postmodern insouciance combined with a kind of raw primitivism — the squared-off profile is what you’d expect a 4-year-old to draw with a fat crayon — the Flex brought the station wagon into the sardonic age.

Translation: It looks like it was designed by a mental patient, or a hillbilly, or a chimpanzee, but in a good way!

I now have a new way to spend time when I’m not busy hitting refresh waiting for that cheap VB-2 to materialize on craigslist. Yes, I have recently rediscovered Paul Brians’ fantastic Common Errors in English (he asks that everyone link to that page, which answers any questions you might have about the site. If you’d just like to skip to the errors, well, go here), thanks to a comment on a recent entry in Dan’s blog. If you’re like me, there will be a lot to entertain you there.

It’s not that I make a lot of these common errors, or that I’m particularly picky about the way other people use language (although he does address my current, mystifyingly common pet peeve). Part of why I’ve been enjoying it so much is that Paul Brians is pretty funny, in an English professor sort of way. I think what I really enjoy, though, is guessing what the entries will actually be about before I click them. The entry for “ax” is a good example. I thought it was going to discuss the two spellings of the tool, but no, the ax in question is just a futuristic pronunciation of ask.

Anyway, check it out. There are some pretty good ones.

Discovery News has a story (via) about a presentation Rodolfo Fattovich and Kathryn Bard gave on the ropes they’ve found at Wadi Gawasis. There are some nice pictures in the slideshow, but I really wish they had a picture of the cave they found the rope in, as 30 huge coils of 4,000-year-old rope is a much more spectacular thing to see than it sounds like. Anyway, I just thought I’d throw a quick link to that story; there are a couple of cool pictures, and Wadi Gawasis is a pretty interesting site . . . even if ancient rope isn’t entirely your thing.

I am not the first person who has sat at my desk at work. This is probably true for a lot of people, but I couldn’t think of anything better to open with. When I first got there it was relatively clean, but some of the previous occupants have left things behind. The stuffed purple bunny sitting on my monitor comes to mind. So, generally I’m not surprised if I find something near my desk that isn’t mine. The other day, however, was different. I was sitting, waiting for some pages to finish scanning, when I heard something fall on the ground. I looked down by my trashcan and saw this:

A packet of broccoli seeds. “That’s odd,” I thought to myself, and picked them up. Four things struck me as I looked at it. First, the packet is wrapped in packing tape. Second:

It is almost 30 years old. Third:

The packet was split in two and taped together so that it stands up on its own. I actually had it sitting on my desk for a few days thinking that it was just some sort of decoration. To be honest, I still have it sitting on my desk that way, even though I now know its true purpose. More on that later. Fourth:

The side opposite the broccoli has pictures of gulls on it. I wondered for some time about why someone would have made something like this, but eventually just accepted that maybe whoever made it really liked broccoli. My boss took a look at it, though, and figured it out pretty quickly.

Yeah, it’s a wallet. It’s sort of embarrassing that I didn’t realize that, considering I used to have a very similar wallet made of packing tape. She suggested I use it, but considering I lost a bank card and driver’s license when they fell out of my last tape wallet, I’m a bit reluctant. I think I’ll just keep it on my desk, and wonder where it fell from, and why it was there.