Argot Navis

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I had actually never read, or heard of, John Hawks' very entertaining (and educational!) blog before today. I discovered it this afternoon (via) and spent most of my free time at work reading through it. If you're at all interested in biological anthropology or human evolution, it's a pretty good read. His latest post on LB 1, for example, is pretty cool if you've been following the Hobbit news lately (edit: I guess I should point out that he has written, uh, a bit more about the Hobbits, too).

I, of course, was mostly drawn to his TV reviews. Here are some highlights:

The post that drew me in was his review of 10,000 BC drawn from the IMDb message board (apparently IMDb is the new YouTube). The “hey guys, the correct term is BP” comment really made this one for me.

His comparison of Apocalypto and Collapse sums up much more elegantly than I've ever been able to my basic opinion of Jared Diamond's writings on anthropology (see also).

This older entry is pretty good.

I enjoyed this even older entry simply because the discussion about “race” reminded me of something my skeletal analysis professor said: “Remember, the police generally are not interested in lectures on the socially constructed nature of race. They really just want you to help them figure out who those bones belonged to.”

This entry is easily one of my favorites.

Also, it's not in the TV reviews section, but I always think it's cool when I see reviews of papers by people I used to say hello to in the hall, such as this one. Even if that paper was over 20 years old at the time.

Anyway, the point is, he has a pretty cool blog. Someday I hope to be at least that cool. Perhaps I'll send him an e-mail and let him know . . . probably not, but hey.