Things.
A few quiet moments this afternoon! And since the real-life stuff feels like too much to attempt to cover, here's some random Stuff I've been collecting.
* If you thought fandom was the only place where people spent astonishing amounts of time losing all sense of perspective in rabid battles about things that don't really matter when you look at the big picture... Heh.
* A lovely and interesting little video that tweaks my sense of wonder: "Procreation by Explosion"
* A triceratops by any other name would smell as sweet.
...Well, maybe not sweet. But I don't understand why people are upset to learn that the "triceratops" may have been the juvenile of what was previously thought to be a different species, the torosaur. It's still the same animal, it still existed, we just have to call it "baby torosaur" now. Or, more likely, we call the torosaur a triceratops and the "old" triceratops a... baby triceratops. How is this a betrayal of our childhood? Science reclassifies things all the time. Did you know that skunks are no longer considered part of the weasel family proper? Instead of being Mustelids, they get their own family, Mephitidae.
I can understand if it were a case of scientists realizing they had accidentally put two or three rhinoceros skull fragments on a hippo body and the whole triceratops thing was just a myth. I would feel worse about breaking it to someone that there probably never were any unicorns, just some whales with awesome horns. But as far as we still know, there *was* a triceratops. We just know more about it now, so we're calling it a slightly different name.
I blame misleading reporting. News organizations have actually published sentences like "Triceratops never existed." That's just not true, and people read it, don't bother to read and understand the actual issue, and it upsets them when there's no need. Is it the name you love, or the animal itself? Based on how people still get grumpy about having to call Brontosaurus an Apatosaur, I'm starting to wonder if it is actually the name. Or maybe I just don't understand the issue? I don't think this is comparable to Pluto, where its reclassification really felt like a demotion. The triceratops thing is a lateral move.
* If you thought fandom was the only place where people spent astonishing amounts of time losing all sense of perspective in rabid battles about things that don't really matter when you look at the big picture... Heh.
* A lovely and interesting little video that tweaks my sense of wonder: "Procreation by Explosion"
* A triceratops by any other name would smell as sweet.
...Well, maybe not sweet. But I don't understand why people are upset to learn that the "triceratops" may have been the juvenile of what was previously thought to be a different species, the torosaur. It's still the same animal, it still existed, we just have to call it "baby torosaur" now. Or, more likely, we call the torosaur a triceratops and the "old" triceratops a... baby triceratops. How is this a betrayal of our childhood? Science reclassifies things all the time. Did you know that skunks are no longer considered part of the weasel family proper? Instead of being Mustelids, they get their own family, Mephitidae.
I can understand if it were a case of scientists realizing they had accidentally put two or three rhinoceros skull fragments on a hippo body and the whole triceratops thing was just a myth. I would feel worse about breaking it to someone that there probably never were any unicorns, just some whales with awesome horns. But as far as we still know, there *was* a triceratops. We just know more about it now, so we're calling it a slightly different name.
I blame misleading reporting. News organizations have actually published sentences like "Triceratops never existed." That's just not true, and people read it, don't bother to read and understand the actual issue, and it upsets them when there's no need. Is it the name you love, or the animal itself? Based on how people still get grumpy about having to call Brontosaurus an Apatosaur, I'm starting to wonder if it is actually the name. Or maybe I just don't understand the issue? I don't think this is comparable to Pluto, where its reclassification really felt like a demotion. The triceratops thing is a lateral move.