Smart birds hint at very clever dinosaur ancestors

Current (and lowest common) thinking is that dinosaurs were dumb, despite living and evolving for 165-180 million years in the not exactly user-friendly environs that was the Mesozoic era. 

This thinking neglects to add that long, looong after those after-effects of a big meteor had wiped out the big 'uns, their tiny, obviously very intelligent, problem-solving, song-making, sentient-proven avian survivors added another ~60 millions years, which they continue to do to this day. 

Writers that worded my thinking

Bookshelves are where the best memories are held until a suitable mind comes along to share it with.

The six writers below made me see my tiny role in the bigger picture, while the remainder helped to word my thinking. Which is huge, for our thoughts become our words become our deeds become our lives.

Robert Ardrey, the OG fight club guy who scripted hits on Broadway and in Hollywood before returning to his actual training as philosopher to report direct from the conflict zone that was (and still is) archeology in Africa. 

How airports became the new Limbo

Gemini created this image that captures so much of the joys of the aisle seat.

The post below was a comment to the excellent Please Return To Your Seat essay on Substack by Scot Monaco. IT IS A FUNNY, so hold off with the brandished crucifixes and angry martyrs OK? Because why I have long overpaid my dues as former lay youth pastor and have doubly earned the right to douse in a heavy sense of humour any belief system.

That airports and flying have become a hell-lite experience, is mostly the fault of faithfull Catholics and Islamists (and a few Judaists). Stay with me now -- for quantum physics and faith systems are about to mix and birth a postulate in public.

Die Koolkop Prinses en mense se harte

Sien jy die lig aan die einde van die goue pad deur die vreemde woud? 
Kopiereg

Eendag, lank lank gelede, was daar 'n koolkop wat 'n storie gehoor het. Sy was 'n prinses koolkop, soos mens kon sien met die pers sap in haar phloeme. Die storie wat sy gehoor het, was oor die olifante wat in erdwurms wegkruip.

Wat gebeur het, sien, was lat die Skepper per ongeluk van tevredegeit gesug het, net presies toe die Skepper die laaste fraiings grys klei tussen die hanne so van mekaar af gevryf het. Die Skepper was vol van tevredegeit want behalwe vir die laaste grys fraiings in die Skepper se palms se plooie, is al die grys klei in 'n lielike, groot, grys diere omskep. 

Footsteps In The Museum

I've met all the people named below, though not in the Natural History Museum of Pietermaritzburg with those giant beetles, ants, praying mantes and that truly disturbing spider on the roof. One of them (the people, not the goggas) told me about the ghostly footsteps in an old building late at night. The rest is not his story -- but a ghost story of mine.

Pay attention to the timeline, the plot thickens around the fatefull day of 2 February 2022.

28Feb2023	2Feb2022	29Feb2023	2Feb2022
29Feb2023	5Sept2023	8Nov2023	9Nov2023

They all know me at the museum. 

“They” being the card-carrying members of the Night Shifters – the security staff; the cleaners; the odd student reading actual books in the musty back rooms to research a thesis. 

People who work nights at the museum are my type of people. We are a tribe of reclusive weirdos who do not judge each other. Not like the people you meet outside. That is why I only go outside when I am low on coffee beans.

The Turtle Still Moves

April 28 was when Terry Pratchett got born, which explains the date of this entry. Sir Terry then went on to spiral around our sun 66 times, shedding wry and tender wisdoms in the second half of his life in the manner of a dandelion exploding into wishes when a child blows on it. 

In his last decade Alzheimer's ate holes in his memories and while his story stopped for us Pratchetters, the rest of the uncaring world mostly moved on. 

"Mostly", because every so often, a new curious mind gets sucked into the wake of A'tuin (or something cosmically and no doubt comically similar happens) and these new fans then make wry posts trying to describe the magic that is in every Pratchett story, complain about the movie adaptions, or totally geek out on Fandom, the Wiki Lspace, or the OG Lspace.

What follows below is none of those. Instead, it is a little Disk World story that came to me in the middle of the night. 

About those beached whales…

Mystery surrounds the beaching of 11 long-finned pilot whales at Farewell Spit beach in New Zealand on February 11, 2017. Photo: Marty Melville.

Dear you,

I’m writing to explain about whales and zombies, the breathers and non-breathers, as it were.

About us zombies, you got three things right. Actually, make that three and a half things.

First, you are right that there are zombies. Yes, for realsies.