Archive for December 17th, 2013

We have a feeling that Prince Kropotkin would not approve.

Tuesday, December 17th, 2013

anarchy

(Wiki wandering led me to the article on the Big Boys:

Over the years the group played with five drummers in all; Steve Collier, Greg Murray, Fred Shultz, Rey Washam and Kevin Tubb who played only one show (the bands first) because Steve was sick.

Spinal Tap really was a documentary, and we just didn’t know it at the time.)

(Edited to add: Hurrah! The U2/Popmart/giant lemon story is immortalized online! What did I tell you? (Scroll down to “Rock and Roll Creation”.) By the way, I own and enthusiastically recommend This is Spinal Tap: Official Companion.)

Posted in Books, Music, Photography, Stupid | Comments Closed

Word to my mother.

Tuesday, December 17th, 2013

A pair of flamingos might be the last to leave Betfair Hollywood Park when the Inglewood racetrack finally closes Sunday.

Posted in Clippings, Horses | Comments Closed

Open the door, get on the floor, everybody kill the dinosaur.

Tuesday, December 17th, 2013

A prominent dinosaur “hobbyist” is claiming “’serious errors and irregularities’ in dinosaur research involving some of the world’s top paleontologists”.

[The hobbyist’s] article, published by the journal PLoS One, says Dr. Erickson’s papers contain major mistakes, including graphs that do not match the data and curves that do not match the reported equations. And [his] revised estimates put the maximum growth rate of Apatosaurus at about a tenth of what Dr. Erickson and his colleagues had reported.

Why is this interesting? Well, scientific disputes of this sort are a topic for coverage on this blog. After all, we do have “Retraction Watch” on our blog roll.

But there’s another good reason: the “hobbyist” in question is Microsoft millionaire, Modernist Cuisine author, and notorious patent troll Dr. Nathan P. Myhrvold.

Dr. Myhrvold said he contacted Dr. Erickson, asking for the original data. While Dr. Erickson answered some questions, he said the data was on a computer he had gotten rid of and later that he did not have time to answer more questions, Dr. Myhrvold said.

I’m not a big fan of Dr. Myhrvold, but that kind of answer…well…it stinks.

And now that I have it stuck in your head:

Posted in Clippings, Geek | Comments Closed