Terrapin Procrastination

I am the 99%

2011-10-31T13:23:00.003-04:00

People for the Ethical Treatment of Opisthokonts

2011-08-21T11:54:00.001-04:00

...or Deuterostomes, or Lophotrochozoans, or whatever.

[the point being, y'see, the completely arbitrary whim by which "animals" is typically defined]

not my chair

2011-07-14T14:47:00.000-04:00

yeah, I just saw this for the first time the other day. Sue me.

You read it here first

2011-06-29T08:50:00.000-04:00

...unless you, you know, didn't.

Idea for a new social media platform: combine Blogger and Twitter.
People can issue 'bleats'.

as they follow the flock, see...

Tortoise splitters

2011-06-28T18:41:00.001-04:00

According to Bob Murphy et al. the desert tortoise ought to be split into at least two species, called Gopherus agassizi (California/Nevada/Utah) and G. morafkai (Arizona and, for now, Sonora and Sinaloa).

OK.
My reaction to most taxonomy papers is basically The Dude's:

But as opinions go, I guess Bob Murphy's is a good one.

I am happy they used the opportunity to coin a new North American tortoise name to honor Dave Morafka; he was a good guy.

RIP

Look for serious conservation/political fallout from this one.

-------------------------------------------------------------

here's a FAQ

and here's a map:

This station is: Jamaica. This is the train to: Babylon.

2011-06-16T22:20:00.000-04:00

what's wrong with this picture?

2011-05-31T13:09:00.001-04:00

View Larger Map

Two views of an adult Calvin

2011-05-17T15:42:00.000-04:00

Calvin, Hobbes, and Bacon (sweet)

CAL v.1n (not)

nother Hero

2011-05-06T23:32:00.001-04:00

because at the moment I am digging Reese and the Smooth Ones (1969), Lester Bowie:

there goes the East Mojave

2011-04-06T10:03:00.001-04:00

Ivanpah Valley, north of I-15.
Then, via Google Earth:

View Larger Map

Now, via Basin and Range Watch

I'd sign this letter

2011-03-25T14:44:00.000-04:00

A six-word open letter to the environmental movement.

Bring it, Paraguay!

2011-03-24T16:00:00.000-04:00

U.S. politicians and Garcia

2011-03-23T10:52:00.000-04:00

Any advice, Jer?

so long, Bear

2011-03-16T18:07:00.001-04:00

re: the Thread, anymore

2011-03-05T13:45:00.000-05:00

I will stipulate the almost incredibly passive-aggresive nature of this post.
have a nice day

Two years of the as yet interminable Thread

2011-02-27T19:36:00.006-05:00

So that's two years, 175.76 subThreads, 135,539 comments.
Year Two alone accounted for 144.76 of the subThreads and 107,490 of the comments (= 79%).
Here's the overview:

Fig. 1: [click to enlarge] Comment count for the first two years of Pharyngula's Endless Thread. The colorful vertical lines mark each of the first 50 or so subThreads, but I gave up on that shit. Red threadmarkers with adherent vestigial green threads mark anastomoses. The pink threadmarkers are the 1- and 2-year marks. Somewhere in there in light blue are the parallel subsubThreads CXXVb and CLXIIb.

Up, up up. It's a long way from last year for damn sure.

Commenting rates over Year Two's subThreads varied from 150 to 813 comments /d (Fig. 2)

Fig 2: [click to enlarge] Commenting rates for each subThread, plotted at end dates. Pink markers delineate years 1 and 2. Black line is a 3-point moving average to de-emphasize individual data. Red curve is a best-fit third-order polynomial.

Pretty variable, but possibly stabilizing at a long-term mean of about 370 comments/d.

SubThreads of Year Two lasted an average of 2.57 d (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3: [click to enlarge] Duration of each subThread. Note logarithmic Y-axis. Conventions as in Fig. 2.

Interestingly, the very first subThread of Year Three was the first ever to come in at less than 1 d.

Finally, the relationship between duration and commenting rate continued to be well described by a power curve (Fig.4).

Fig. 4: [click to enlarge] Log-log plot of subThread duration vs. commenting rate.

I still don't know what, if anything, this means. However, it seems that less than 5% of the total variance in duration is attributable to factors other than commenting rate (e.g., PZ changing the portcullis-target, PZ getting drunk, PZ's general poopyheadedness, etc.).

by pretty much unpopular request

2011-02-10T11:36:00.004-05:00

Really?
man, am I loath to re-enter this conversation, but

OK...
(meta: I can't wait to find out out whether this will qualify as not utterly stupid.)

First, friendly blogging advice? avoid putting links to long posts elsewhere at the top of your post. People with short attention spans click them, read them first, get bored, and may or may not get back to your OP.
The Mixing Memory guy has, imofwiw, some good points and some stupid points. *shrug*
I will point out that these two nearly juxtaposed sentences are contradictory:

While the female preference for "feminine" toys is obvious, the males don't seem to have a gender-preference at all.....In short, the data tells us zilch, zero, nada, nothing.

[and plus you know how I feel about "the data tells" but anyway]

But OK your laborious OP.

we now see hilarious reviews of the research like this one.

? That's not a review, it's another primary study on another species. Are you referring to their treatment of A&H02 in their Introduction? I read that, but I missed the hilarity. They are critical of A&H02 (making some of the same points as the Mixing Memory guy in fact).
(A critique, incidentally, to which Hines and Alexander have since replied; I don't know if perhaps any of your points are addressed there because I didn't read it.)

They are hypothesizing that the bases for alleged human sex differences in toy preference are evolved from a time before our hominid lineage began.

No they're not. SC, that's the Abstract, summarizing the whole paper. The sentence to which you refer begins "The results suggest that..." which (together with its positioning near the end) signifies that it's summarizing the Discussion (where some subjective interpretation and speculation is typically permitted), not the hypothesis. In fact, since the paper is available online, it's not hard to find the actual explicit hypothesis right there at the end of the Intro where it belongs:

To evaluate the possibility that sex differences in toy preferences can arise independent of these social and cognitive mechanisms, we therefore tested the hypothesis that vervet monkeys, like human beings, show sex differences in toy preferences.

---

and they believe their results show this. .

No, they believe their results "suggest" this. Do you think that's a trivial semantic niggle? I can assure you that in science it's not; it's an important distinction that is enforced by reviewers and editors.

Let’s take a look at the rationale for selecting these objects:

Let's! But to be fair, that rationale does not appear in the very first sentence of the Intro (which you have quoted), but rather in the Methods (2.1, 2nd 'graph). (Ah, you actually quote the passage below. So you knew.)

Time to play Spot the ~~Spin~~ Difference!
exhibit A:

These authors, though, hypothesize that human sex differences in toy preferences reflect evolved differences.

exhibit B:

The present research addressed the hypothesis that toy preferences may be associated with factors other than human social and cognitive development.

Let's play again!!
exhibit C:

To evaluate the possibility that sex differences in toy preferences can arise independent of these social and cognitive mechanisms, we therefore tested the hypothesis that vervet monkeys, like human beings, show sex differences in toy preferences.

exhibit D:

In other words, they expect that vervets will exhibit the same differences in preference that humans allegedly do, for the reason that the bases for these differences evolved in some ancestor, millions of years ago, common to both vervets and humans (and indeed, all primates).

Those are "other words" all right!
Do you (and strange gods) do this rhetorical shit on purpose, or do you really not notice? I'm sincerely asking this time.

they are not measuring play behavior, but merely contact with the objects.

Is that different from how preferences are quantified in human infants? (I don’t know the answer.)

But a study of sex differences in object preference for a given species should be designed with that species’ lifestyle – behaviors, including sex differences in activities; social structure - in mind.

It "should" be? But such a study would be addressing an entirely different question.

it is improper to generalize from a single culture in one moment to “boys” and “girls.”

I agree, but on the other hand it's not clear that the authors have done this. Are there cross-cultural human data available?

Again, the suggestion is that sex differences in preferences for features of these toys evolved early in primates.

Remember that they’re suggesting that a male preference for these objects evolved early in primates.

And again, remember that, a) no they never even suggest that a preference evolved in anybody specifically for these objects, and b) the actual suggestion that some sort of sex-specific preference behavior evolved before the common ancestor of Old World monkeys comes only later, after the results were in.
Of course I agree it's a weak stretch, but it's also explicitly extrapolative, never presented as a firm logical conclusion from the data presented. And if the data had turned out differently, they couldn't have said it even speculatively.
It's either dishonest or clueless of you to keep pretending that this is presented as the take-home message in the published article.

alleged girl preferences

I think the adjective you wanted there was 'empirical'

But it would be completely bizarre to argue that human females evolved a preference for modern objects currently associated with cooking as objects such that they would be drawn to their form without any knowledge of their function. To suggest that female vervets or our common ancestors, who obviously lack any knowledge of cooking, evolved a preference for these as objects is simply ludicrous. Species don’t evolve in anticipation of another species millions of years later using objects in a certain way.

I know! That would be bizarre! Ludicrous! Ridiculous!
Good thing that that's a strawfigure entirely of your own construction and that nobody--NOBODY!--not the authors, not me, not anybody else you ever may have argued with about this--has ever thought anything like that.

You know, SC, iirc this is the precise point on which our previous discussion foundered interminably. Your repeating it here makes me want to just say fuck it, because as I opined back then and then again more recently at Coyne's, I am forced to conclude that you just don't get it.

Plus, either you don't know how to read scientific literature or you are intentionally(?) deconstructing it for rhetorical purposes and either way it's overtaxing my eye-rollers.
I'm going to read the rest of your post but I don't intend to comment much more about it. This is seeming like a giant waste of everybody's time.

They conclude: .

Wrong. That is not a conclusion, it's explicitly a suggested implication of the data. What they actually concluded from the data is juuuust above there:

Children’s toys, therefore, appear to have differential value for males and females of at least two primate species, vervets and humans. This new finding provides
additional support for the hypothesis that sex differences in toy preferences can arise
independent of the social and cognitive mechanisms thought by many to be the primary
influences on toy preferences in human beings.

I'm going to point out that this far, and no farther, is as far as I have ever defended this article in any way. And it's exactly as far as I'm inclined to discuss it now.

but omg, SC. Next you actually quote the same passage I just quoted--the one that appears juuuuust above that other one?--but preface it with "They go on to argue that"?
That really looks intentional.

But as I’ve discussed, sex differences in these object “preferences” in vervets, should they appear, are likely to be a fluke, an artifact of a single study.

you're a nut. You haven't discussed this, you've simply asserted it. You're pulling your likelihoods right out of your ass.
But of course, likelihood aside, any single study in science may be a statistical fluke. Every scientist acknowledges this every day. We try hard to actually provide an accurate probability calculation for everything we conclude (implicitly tentatively) from our data. The probability is never 1.

In the conclusion they pull novel “explanations” out of the air.

“In the conclusion”? It's the fucking Discussion. They are obligated to attempt some sort of explanation for the data they are reporting. It's part of the whole formal convention of reporting science thing? And they don’t know. And so they're probably wrong. So what.

blah blah blah
and that’s the last I ever want to say or want to see on the subject, seriously.
It is Unimportant.

Here we go

2011-01-26T20:12:00.000-05:00

posted in memory of someone I did not know

2010-12-08T13:13:00.001-05:00

for SC

Hemiphractus fasciatus via Jerry Coyne

Kermit the Frog via Jim Henson

Snapping turtles of Long Island

2010-12-02T11:56:00.001-05:00

this or this

2010-11-26T17:06:00.002-05:00

read all about it

The Colors of Christmas Through the Decades

2010-09-20T13:32:00.003-04:00

White Christmas (1942)

Green Christmas (1958)

Blue Xmas (1962)

Black Christmas (1974)

Yellow Christmas (1986)

(Charlie) Brown Christmas* (1992)

~~Orange~~ Christmas Orange (2003)

*yeah, kind of a stretch. *shrug*

last chance? please help

2010-08-26T00:31:00.003-04:00

Laura Cunningham photo.

If enough people write letters in the next few days, it seems there is a chance to stop the TopKill of a big chunk of Ivanpah Valley.
Please read and act if you can:
Save Ivanpah Valley

depressing news

2010-08-11T16:32:00.001-04:00

I used to know this place really well*.
Read it and weep.
I did.

*I spent a good part of three years just below the first 'e' of 'Preserve' in the map shown here. Keep reading.

teh Truth

2010-07-24T23:18:00.001-04:00

Biology is always more complex than you think.

bivalves vs. amniotes

2010-07-23T12:00:00.001-04:00

This post at Tet Zoo reminded me of a photo I had stashed away. Apologies for utterly forgetting the source.

This is a juvenile stinkpot (Sternotherus odoratus) killed by a freshwater mussel of some sort.

Nature! Red in ~~tooth~~ uh valve and um ~~claw~~ umbo.

They're so cute when they're little

2010-06-16T18:08:00.002-04:00

[click to enlarge. You know you want to.]

Mem'ries

Light the corners of my mind

Misty watercolored mem'ries

Of The Way We Were...

Heroes, another in a series

2010-05-08T20:49:00.000-04:00

Paul Krassner: Satirist, author, underground publisher, and raving, unconfined nut.

New New Thread Everlasting Omnibus Update Toodle-oo

2010-05-08T11:56:00.021-04:00

[meta: I guess this is probably the last one of these I'll do.

Anyone interested in the data can e me: svendimiloATgmail]

Here is the State of teh Thread: Two years! Hoo-ray!
[a kind of minimalist 2-y retrospective from the IJoTS is over here.]
Updatedate: 02/25/2011
Comment Count: 135698
Current Episode: Episode CLXXVI: Atheism ain’t just for us old geezers (link)

Fig. 1: [click to enlarge] Comment count for the first two years of Pharyngula's Endless Thread. The colorful vertical lines mark each of the first 50 or so subThreads, but I gave up on that shit. Red threadmarkers with adherent vestigial green threads mark anastomoses. The pink threadmarker is the 1-year mark. Somewhere in there in light blue are the parallel subsubThreads CXXVb and CLXIIb..

Archives and detailed history of teh Thread are squirreled away here, frozen in time on 3/30/2010 forever.

so it goes

The Structure of Procrastinatory Theory

2010-04-07T12:03:00.001-04:00

I have serendipitously discovered the most astounding proof that no matter how far you extend microprocrastination, it can never become macroprocrastination. And I will reveal this proof...

mañana

[posted in honor of Paul Nelson Day. Happy Monkey!]

History of a tree yucca. Just one.

2010-03-05T13:16:00.003-05:00

via Chris Clarke:

In 1926, a guy named Burton Frasher photographed a desert landscape in a place called Centennial Flat, not far from Darwin, CA.

He sold it as a postcard:

Chris Clarke recognized that Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia) in the middle:

What's so cool is, he recognized it from a somewhat more famous photo taken 60 years later:

And the third pic in this sequence dates from 2009; there is a poignant plaque.

How cool is that to have a visual record of a single famous organism over 80+ years?

Dead JTs like this are the preferred habitat of the desert night lizard (Xantusia vigilis), a very cool lizard for several reasons, including its ridiculously low metabolic rate:

Imagine here U2 covering "The Circle of Life"...

Teh Thread Everlasting at One Year: A Graphical Retrospective

2010-02-26T23:10:00.004-05:00

At 10:28 PM Pharyngula timestamp time (=EST) on February 24, 2010, teh Eternal Thread reached exactly one year in age. From shortly after its humble beginning as an argument with delugionists in a thread ostensibly about some comicbook movie to its current status as damn-near permanent Most Active comment thread of all of ScienceBorg, I have assiduously copied and pasted the date and time of every hundredth comment. This ridiculous time-wasting hobby has now yielded a number of sniny graphs and a few hard-won Truths; because I'm not really sure what the latter are, exactly, here I share the former.

First, the raw data, exactly one year of teh Thread (all figures are clickable and thereby enlargable):

Fig. 1: One year's worth of teh Thread Everlasting. See current update for details.

So, there it is, in all its glory, such as it is. Just the facts, ma'am. 365 days; 28049 comments.

On January 28, I had ventured the following forecasts of the incipient month's commenting:

Fig. 2: Predictions by extrapolation of best-fit polynomial equations for the whole data set and two pretty much arbitrary subsets (see linked post for details)

A few weeks later (February 14), in the last update before the Threadiversary, I essayed this update calculated from the entire Thread:

Fig. 3: In aqua, a fifth-order polynomial model of the whole Thread, forecast from Feb. 14 ahead to the first anniversary on Feb. 24. 2010.

At some point in there (2/01/10), I was also goaded into making a more precise (and therefore more likely to be WOTI) prediction for the count a few days later (see here). At the time, I noted, however, that the prediction was based on the red "hockey stick" equation (Fig. 2) and therefore "anything less than that and I will claim success."
Which I now so claim.
No real hockey stick, though, IMO. Yet.
I felt I had hedged my bets pretty well there with a spread from approx. 25 to 40 K and indeed, the final total ended up satisfactorily bracketed, and remarkably (and entirely coincidentally) close to the babybear green curve in Fig. 2 and not far from the aqua whole-Thread curve in Fig. 3 either..

Now, ~~one of~~ my commenters has opined that my "methods for prediction are far too ad-hoc to be considered scientific or to make accurate predictions...I do not believe the rates can be predicted." Of course I found this both highly insulting and entirely correct. There is absolutely no reason at all that the relationship between time and blog-comments should or ought to be expected to fit any particular curve, and further, no justification whatsoever for extrapolating a nearly arbitrary polynomial equation from the data to which it was illegitimately fit into the unknowable future.
This does not stop me from continuing the practice, however, in what follows directly. Why? Because for some stupid reason it entertains me to do so. It also occupies much time that would otherwise be in danger of being well-spent on grading and writing and all the other shit that I do this instead of. Anyway. More on the kibitzer "qbsmd"--if that is her or his real name--below.

OK but anyway so I thought about subdividing teh Thread into like segemnts in various ways for analysis and shit, and I squinted hard at various instars of Fig. 1 with that in mind, but with the whole year of data in hand (if you had Fig. 1 in your hand) there is one clear landmark breakpoint.
I refer, of course, to the horror--the HORROR--of which threadizens whisper still, the Anastomosation. [!!!!!!!!!!!!] Look at Fig. 1: that red threadmarker is the fulcrum on which the lever of teh Thread pivots, more-or-less clearly separating and delineating phlegmatic Before from manic After. Lifting and separating.

[Exclusive!!! IJTS researchers investigating the anastomisation catastrophe have recently uncovered shocking smoking-gun evidence of premeditation on the part of teh ECO, as well as an unsettling, disquietingly prescient warning of anastomisation foretold. We now return you to your regularly scheduled retrospective.]

For reference, therefore, here is a representation of teh Thread's post-anastomisation Modern Era:

Fig. 4: Teh Thread's Modern Era, post-anastomisation, described by linear and quadratic regressions.

The impressive fit of the quadratic curve suggests that not just comment counts but commenting rates are still on the increase. We can examine this apparent trend in more detail by looking at the integrated, or derived, or whatever data on subThread duration and commenting rate. I took a stab at this kind of descriptive analysis once before, and since I haven't had any better ideas since, here's the same kind of thing again:

Fig. 5: SubThread duration. Each datum represents a subThread, plotted on the date that each ended. Pink line is a 3-point moving average. Vertical red line maeks anastomisation, the fulcrum on which the lever etc.

Well, it's no secret that subThreads have gotten briefer. The post-anastomisation mess is easier to follow on semi-log coordinates:

Fig. 6: Same as Fig. 5, only plotted on a logarithmic ordinate axis.

Duration seems to have stabilized, after a precipitous drop, at about 2 days. My guess is that it will remain right there for a while. I sincerely doubt teh CO will be bothered to spawn a daily subThread (nor should he), and longer sTs (in time) would mean at this point longer sTs (in comments and kilobytes).

Thread duration is not, of course, a truly random variable, because it depends in part on an arbitrary limit on length (in cs and kBs) imposed from On High by teh ECO PZ.
Traditionally, teh CO would slam down the portcullis on one subThread and spawn another whenever he noticed that the comment count had exceeded 1000. On the day before Squidmas Eve, PZ had the class to inquire among us hoi-polloi about the possibility of a lower target. Subsequent subThreads were (and are) portcullised when he notices that more than 666 comments have accumulated (as confirmed here).

So subThreads are shorter (in time) partly because of an imposed change in the arbitrary limit, but also, of course, because of a relatively recent increase in commenting rate:

Fig. 7: SubThread-wise commenting rates, conventions as in Figs. 5-6.

So in my previous metathreadual analysis, only four sTs post-A, I wondered, "Can the ridiculous current rates, approaching 200/d, be sustained?" They were not; they were greatly exceeded instead. 300 comments/d and more is not unusual recently.

Before asking the obvious causal question, though, I was curious about the relationship between commenting rate and subThread duration. Clearly the faster the commenting the shorter the subThread, but is the negative relationship linear? tight? diffuse? Was there a change in the relationship corresponding to the change in limit? Here are the data:

Fig. 8: Bivariate relationship of commenting rate and subThread duration. Green data: pre-anastomisation; blue data: post-A.

I did not predict a power relationship, but the fit is tight. Of course, one of the best things about a power relationship is that it's linear on log-log coordinates:

Fig. 9: Like Fig. 8, but log-log coordinates and separate pre- & post-A regressions.

It's hard to be sure without running the ANCOVA (which I am not so nutty as to bother with for this), but to my eye the post-A line is probably not significantly shallower than the green pre-A data. The single point of overlap is consistent with homogeneity of both slopes and intercepts. If so, then we are led to the startling conclusion that the pink-boxed equation should provide robust predictions of future subThread durations from knowledge of commenting rate even if the portcullis-target is changed again! Also, I have a beautiful piece of land in Florida and/or a bridge in Brooklyn I can let you have cheap!

It is important to note, however, that the relationship between commenting rate and thread duration is not simple. For example, it has been noted (by qbsmd, as well as SEF and I think some other people in the Thread itself someplace) that one effect of arbitrarily turning over sTs sooner (by changing the target-limit) is that the Thread spends more time on the Pharyngula front page, and this probably increases commenting rates (a "frontpage" effect of transiently increased rates is clear in many subThreads illustrated in Fig. 1 and my anastomisation post). I'll add that much of teh Thread's burgeoning post-A growth occured during the month of January, when teh CO was travelling in other realms and posting a bit less often than usual. The point being that shorter subThreads cause higher commenting rates as higher commenting rates cause shorter subThreads. Perhaps shorter subThreads simply do not permit the frontpage effect to peter out (this is similar in concept to summation of electrical potentials and muscle tension).

Another idea is that there may be some positive feedback involving the widgets and gizmos in the sidebars. High commenting rates will cause more frequent appearance of teh Thread in the "recent comments" list (which I rely on) and the "Most Active" Top 5 as well, which might be expected to increase pagehits and commenting rates in turn. A vicious cycle, a spiralling out of control, a blithering bleak bloated blast of bad-blood-borne bubonic blech. Eschaton immanentized. End to all things. All.

Heroes #10

2010-02-20T23:54:00.000-05:00

Thelonious Sphere Monk?

Yes, please.

Now listening...hoo!

Greatest Catfood Commercial of All Time

2010-02-19T00:18:00.003-05:00

...if only I had the skillz to replace the soundtrack with...mmm...'The Porpoise Song'?
'Blue Jay Way'?

'White Rabbit'?

but anyway:

Mojave Action

2010-02-12T23:01:00.002-05:00

Imagine that Martin Scorsese directed a CGI short about a coal train rolling down the hill from Cima to Kelso with NOBODY DRIVING THE TRAIN!

Peter Gabriel soundtrack.

Here it is:

awesome hi-res version here.

[Except there's a road missing. I used to see sidewinders on that missing road all the time.]

Ceci n'est pas une médecin

2010-01-30T01:49:00.000-05:00

Future of The Thread: More Comments

2010-01-28T13:58:00.006-05:00

Following the recent embarrassing trouncing of my once-bold-seeming prediction by that darn reality, I hesitate to prognosticate again.

And yet.

Can we predict the future of The Thread? Here I try out a new approach, one involving multiple predictions and a bracketing of possibilities. This is what the experts do, I guess, when predicting future populations and climates and shit like that.

So the data analyzed are shown in the "reality" link above. I fit polynomial models to three different data sets, choosing the model to display in each case by the wholly arbitrary and rigorously indefensible strategy of adding terms until the r² stopped increasing in the third decimal place. I then forecasted the models into the future as far as February 24, the one-year anniversary of the Thread.
The models are:
Light blue: Fourth-order polynomial fit to the entire data set, from day 1 of The Thread.
Bright green: Fourth-order polynomial fit to the data I consider representing the Thread's "modern era," post-dating the obvious correction of mid-September 2009.
Red: Third-order polynomial fit to the most recent data, post-anastomosation.

Conclusions: More comments on the way!

Oh, how many? These models predict that the comment count on Feb. 24 (the 1-y anniversary) will reach somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000. So, a lot. Personally, I hope it turns out to be the red one, because then we can use the term "hockey stick."

The increasing predictions as data are removed from the model simply emphasizes the recent acceleration of commenting rates. Something has to give pretty soon. An asymptote would break the Internets.

UPDATE 2/1/2010: I was goaded into essaying a more precise (and therefore more likely to be WOTI) prediction here: 50,000 comments at 3 am on 2/28/2010. That's the hockey-stick prediction, so anything less than that and I will claim success.

New Omnibus Thread Everlasting Update

2010-01-27T10:27:00.051-05:00

These archives are no longer updated. New new updates are here.

LAST UPDATED 3/30/2010 @ 37754 comments
The ECO has pulled out all the stops in messing with me and has instituted a de facto triple-anastomosation, despite explicit requests to ~~forbear~~ resist the (admittedly intensely awesome) temptation to do so. So there you have it, more green appendages. Pretty soon teh Thread will look like Swamp Thing.

[click to enlarge]
As always, the vertical blue threadmarkers represent each new blogpost that has been created specifically and explicitly to continue the comment thread started on the "Science of Watchmen" thread at the end of February 2009. The first Threadiversary is denoted by the pink threadmarker.

Oh, that weird green shit? That's on account of the Evil Cephalopodian Overlord of Pharyngula amusing hisself by anastomosing two or even three threads into one (at the red threadmarkers), effectively saddling The Thread wih some kind of withered, vestigial-looking appendages for no good reason other than pure sadistic malice as far as I can tell. But anyway there they are, the bastard subthreads of the Frankensteinian amalgamation. I don't see why they should affect the Count, however. So they don't.
[If you feel differently, go ahead and add in the comments on your own time; data below.]

For the record record, the Pharyngula-thread-length record-setting comment (#2527; red datum) was this one.
The 10K-comment milestone was reached here.
20K here.
30K here.
Last post of the first year was the last post in the linked subThread.
I started counting on 8 April 2009 at 2183 comments.
These are teh rulez.

Back issues of the International Journal for Thread Studies
1/13/10: A bold quantitative prediction of the Future of The Thread! [ok, with perfect 20-20 hindsight in retrospect, it doesn't look so bold any more...]
1/17/10: Preliminary results of the anastomosation experiment reported.
1/24/10: Preliminary metathreadual analysis.
1/28/2010: newer, even bolder predictions.
2/26/2010: The gala special-issue Threadiversary Retrospective.

History of The Thread:

The Saga of The Thread, Prologue & Ch. I, by Owlmirror, OM

Some alternative Origin hypotheses
Teach teh Controversy!

-----
1. Science of Watchmen [1381 comments; 36.05 days]

2. I have no idea what this thread is about anymore [1452 comments; 46.73 d]
[includes some amusingly premature reports of The Thread's imminent demise]

3. I have no idea what this thread is about anymore, reloaded [1023 comments; 12.72 d]

4. The thread that will not die [1014 comments; 15.19 d]

5. Bride of The Thread That Will Not Die [1031 comments; 10.37 d]

6. Son of the Bride of The Thread that Will Not Die [1029 comments; 20.34 d]

7. Revenge of the Son of the Bride of The Thread that Will Not Die [1007 comments; 58.22 d]

8. Curse of the Revenge of the Son of the Bride of The Thread that Will Not Die [1018 comments; 4.43 d]

9. Thread 9 from Outer Space! [1086 comments; 12.56 d]

10. The Horror Express [1012 comments; 19.44 d]

11. The cursed undead heart of the vengeful bride of the son of The Thread that will not die! [1063 comments; 26.82 d]

12. Escape from the planet of the cursed etc. [1021 comments; 12.01 d]

13. The pie made from the cursed undead heart etc. [1045 comments; 12.99 d]

14. The lost skeleton of the mad bride of the son of the Thread from Mars that will not die! [1014 comments; 13.02 d]

15. The huge evergrowing pulsating brain that rules at the center of the Pharyngula ultraworld [715 comments, 8.70 d]

16. The Monolith Monsters are taking over the world! [662 comments; 8.62 d]

*
17. The anastomosing thread that never ends! [778 comments; 4.20 d]

18. Phaynguloids from the deep! Endless swarms of rampaging pharynguloids! [686 comments; 4.89 d]

19. Hairy horde marches on [699 comments; 3.69 d]

20. The never-ending bull session of the red-eyed undead hordes continues! [716 comments; 3.53 d]

21. The mellow, groovy cosmic thread that goes on and on, man [972 comments; 3.53 d]

22. One thing will never end, the endless thread goes on [1065 comments; 2.99 d]

23. This is the thread that you're probably going to stuff full of chatter while I'm in Ireland [953 comments; 4.33 d]

24. Oh, no, I'm full of Guinness, you've filled up the old thread, and you expect me to come up with a creative title? [705 comments; 3.57 d]

25. Nothing will stop the never-ending thread! Nothing! [677 comments; 3.02 d]

26. Open thread again. We'll be here for all eternity, try the calamari [744 comments; 2.28 d]

27. Never-ending thread reset because no one gives enough props to Mrs Emma Peel [690 comments; 2.45 d]

28. While my inner fish protests at being vertical rather than horizontal, the endless thread continues [720 comments; 2.04 d]

29. It grows like a fungus [753 comments; 1.96 d]

30. A Date with Pharyngula [870 comments; 2.23 d]

31. William Shatner has some advice for you thread-stuffin' Pharynguloids [648 comments; 2.39 d]

32. Happy Threadiversary! [703 comments; 3.52 d]

33. Episode XXXIII: The cock-and-bull story continues [694 comments; 2.91 d]

34. Episode XXXIV: You can say that on the internet [669 comments; 1.37 d; that's 487 comments/d!]

35. Episode XXXV: Under the underpinnings of Pharyngula, you find…underwear [676 comments 1.79 d]

36. Episode XXXVI: The predictable descent [693 comments; 2.02 d]

37. Episode XXVII [sic]: Rumors of my birthday are premature [981 comments; 3.73 d]

38. Episode XXXVIII: Distracted in Oz [903 comments; 2.46 d]

39. Episode XXXIX: Play ‘Spot the Moron!’ [715 comments; 3.10 d]

40. Episode XL: An Australian romance [689 comments; 3.29 d]

41. Episode XLI: Aloft and offline and still babbling [735 comments; 2.44 d]

42. Episode XLII: It's growing! It's enormous! [696 comments; 2.97 d]

43. Episode XLIII: Fierce predators in motion! [674 comments; 3.14 d]

**
44. Episode XLIV: Oooh, look! Sniny numbers! [~~current subThread~~]

and that's as far as I took this project. Subsequent subThreads can be linked sequentially forward from ep 44 (linked above) or backward from the current subThread. Apologies for the inconvenience.

-----
{and, for completists, the unofficial Prelude to The Thread: Titanoboa! [912 comments; 20.35 d]***
Some have even claimed that the origins of the Thread can be traced back to a single comment that started it all.}

-----
*this is like the Lanthanoid series of the Periodic Table or something, but here are the bastard subthreads that got anastomosed into The Thread on Jan. 8 2010:
A reply to Carl Wieland
TSTKTS [1872 comments; 38.34 d; combined]

**Aaaaaand the Actinoids of the notorious 3/29/2010 double anastomosation:
Sins of omission [813 comments; 24.66 d]

These guys are dangerous nuts
The Graeme Bird Memorial Thread [1194 comments (172 of them Bird's); 2.43 d; combined]

-----
***{and, for ultracompletists, an unofficial bastard spawn of the unofficial Prelude: This photo is incomplete [197 comments; about a day and a half but who gives a shit](h/t eddie in comments)}

This title expresses approval of the post linked

2010-01-25T00:28:00.001-05:00

This sentence links to a typically incendiary blog post by Chris Clarke.

word o' the day

2010-01-24T17:21:00.000-05:00

starfart

Metathreadual analysis

2010-01-24T14:44:00.005-05:00

With the 20K and 1 y ~~stumbling blocks~~ milestones approaching, a first stab at some comparative subThread-level trends.

First, subThread duration:

Clearly, despite some wide variation in the early going, subThreads are getting shorter in duration; of the last 6 subThreads, none has lasted even 10 d, and the last 9 were terminated ere e'en a fortnight was pass'd. It will be interesting to see if this infernal stimulus for increasingly frequent updates will persist.

Now on to subThreadwise commenting rates:

Very interesting. The illustrated upward trend (dashed line; simple linear regression) is due almost entirely to the high rates of commenting in the last four subThreads, i.e. post-anastomosation (red slash). Before Teh CO's eldritch experiment, a remarkably consistent rate of about 80 comments/day had obtained for five sequential subThreads. Can the ridiculous current rates, approaching 200/d, be sustained?

stay tuned

Animal taxonomy

2010-01-22T11:09:00.011-05:00

A reasonably current synopsis:

OUTLINE of ANIMAL TAXONOMY (incomplete! Only largest groups shown)
The “big nine” major phyla are in boldface.
All named taxa are believed to be monophyletic unless indicated.
Non-monophyletic traditional taxa are in “quotation marks”
Bilaterians are coelomates unless indicated otherwise.

Kingdom Animalia (= Metazoa)
[choanoflagellates: sister group of metazoans; sometimes included in Kingdom]
I. Parazoa: Porifera (sponges; para-/polyphyletic?)
   A. glass sponges
   B. demosponges
   C. calcareans

II. Eumetazoa
    ?: Placozoa
   A. Radiata (para-/polyphyletic?)
       1. Ctenophora (comb jellies)
       2. Cnidaria
           a. hydrozoans (Hydra, hydroids, siphonophores)
           b. scyphozoans (jellyfish)
           c. cubozoans (sea wasps)
           d. anthozoans (anemones, corals)

   B. Bilateria
        Protostomes (=1+2 below)
       1. Lophotrochozoa
           a. “Platyhelminthes” (=flatworms; acoelomate; monophyletic if acoelomorphs excluded)
               i. free-living flatworms (paraphyletic?)
               ii. "flukes" (probably paraphyletic)
               iii. tapeworms
           b. Rotifers (pseudocoelomate)
           c. “Lophophorate” phyla (bryozoans, brachiopods, phoronids; prob. polyphyletic)
    Spiralia (d & e below; para-/polyphyletic?)
           d. Annelida
               i. polychaetes (inc. motile polychaetes, tubeworms; paraphyletic?)
               ii. vestimentiferans
               iii. oligochaetes (earthworms & relatives; paraphyletic?)
               iv. leeches (sometimes lumped with oligochaetes as “clitellates”)
           e Mollusca
               i. chitons
               ii. bivalves (clams, mussels, oysters)
               iii. gastropods (snails, slugs)
               iv. cephalopods (squid, octopus, cuttlefish, nautilus)

       2. Ecdysozoans
           a. Nematoda (=roundworms; pseudocoelomate)
           b. i. onychophorans
                ii. tardigrades
           c. Arthropoda (sometimes considered a superphylum)
               i. trilobites (extinct)
               ii. chelicerates (mostly arachnids [spiders, scorpions, ticks, mites])
               iii. myriapods   (centipedes, millipedes)
               iv. "crustaceans" (decapods, copepods, barnacles, etc.; probably paraphyletic)
               v. hexapods (mostly insects [dragonflies, beetles, ants/bees/wasps, roaches, flies, fleas, butterflies/moths, mantids, etc. etc. etc.])

      3. Deuterostomes
           a. Echinodermata
               i. crinoids (seas lillies, feather stars)
               ii. sea urchins & relatives (sand dollars etc.)
               iii. brittle stars
               iv. sea stars
               v. sea cucumbers
           b. Chordata
               i. cephalochordates (lancelets)
               ii. urochordates (tunicates, salps, larvaceans)
               iii. Vertebrates
                   a. jawless fishes (hagfish, lampreys; paraphyletic)
                   b. cartilaginous fishes (sharks, rays, chimaeras)
                bony fishes (c-e below; paraphyletic)
                   c. ray-finned fishes (extremely diverse!)
                   d. coelacanths
                   e. lungfishes
                tetrapods (f-i below)
                   f. amphibians (frogs, salamanders, caecilians)
                amniotes (g-i below)
                   g. mammals (monotremes, marsupials, eutherians)
                    h. “reptiles” (turtles, crocodilians, lepidosaurs, many extinct clades; paraphyletic!)
i. birds

Baseball history / psychedelic history

2010-01-19T11:42:00.000-05:00

evolution

2010-01-18T14:42:00.000-05:00

newstyle

oldstyle

is better, yes?

On the Anastomosation of Comment Threads

2010-01-17T12:24:00.016-05:00

Presumably you know what I'm talking about already; if not this is unlikely to be of interest.

Teh Cephalopodian Overlord of Pharyngula conducted a fiendish and cruel experiment on January 8, 2010: two active comment threads were brute-force/microsurgically combined, an unnatural procedure jargonously known as anastomosis.

Quoth Teh CO at the time:

So there I am, holding two tubes on the internet that are pulsing and spewing, ready to cut both off…and what is any scientist's natural inclination in such circumstances? Why, to take the severed ends and suture them together and see what happens! That is this new thread, an anastomosis between two, count 'em, two old threads. I wonder…will it explode?

and, in alt-text:

Multiple threads fused into one gigantic monstrosity! Chaos reigns!

We now have sufficient data for a preliminary investigation of the early results from Dr. Myers' (if that is his real name) malicious "experiment".

Background: It was clear very soon that an actual explosion was not forthcoming, falsifying the only explicit hypothesis offered by Myers (itihrn) (though only as a transparent and pathetic post-hoc attempt at rationalizing his sadistic procedure with a thin veneer of some slimy synthetic material that smelled vaguely like scientific method). In the comments, somebody posting as "Myers" offered another hypothesis, albeit one positively dripping with sneering, callous, and--let's admit it--irresponsible disregard for the record-setting, award-winning Thread Everlasting and its threadizens:

More like "squish...SPURT...spurt...spurt.........spurt..................spurt.............sssssss"
Perhaps the patient will die on the operating table.

Well, no, Professor (if that is your real profession). Hell no.
The Thread, as you well know, lives on.
[But in full disclosure, my initial predictions, as well as a few others, were also somewhat exaggerated.]

More rational analysis was soon forthcoming, however, and I summarized my initial qualitative findings here.

What, however, of quantitative effects?
Although I was initially skeptical, the graphed data raised again, as from the dead, like Lazarus or Jesus or a zombie or vampire or whatever, the question: Is it possible that commenting rates were somehow affected by the Merge even if The Thread choked out its weird appendage topically? This is the question addressed hence.

Here are the relevant available data, abstracted from the Thread-history database, in temporal and threadual context:

Fig. 1: Detail of Thread Everlasting history documenting the context and aftermath of anastomosation. (click to enlarge)

These data, chosen to provide similar sample sizes for the pre-anastomosis threads and all available data post anastomosis, were first compared with simple linear regression:

Fig. 2: Linear regression analysis of data shown in Fig. 1. (click to enlarge)

An eyeballed Analysis of Covariance (no, I am not cranking SYSTAT up for this) suggests that the commenting rate (slope of the line) post-anastomosis (158 comments/d) was intermediate between the two pre-anastomosis rates (82 and 206 c/d), and about double the pre-anastomosis rate of The Thread itself, suggesting that anastomosation did indeed have a quantitative effect on commenting rate in this case.

However, it could be argued that commenting rates fluctuate naturally over time (viz. the frontpage effect at the beginning of each subThread), and that (as a result of such fluctuation) the Wieland-appendage data were poorly represented by a single line. I therefore ran a second, more restricted analysis on commenting rates immediately before and after the Merge:

Fig. 3: Proximity-restricted linear regression analysis. (click to enlarge)

This analysis only exacerbates the results of the inclusive analysis. Post-anastomosis commenting (167 c/d) was intermediate to the rates of the two threads pre-anastomosis (66 and 253 c/d), and the similarity of the slopes for the inclusive and restricted post-anastomosis lines shows that this effect was persistent in time.

Conclusion: This first, and (dog willing) last, experiment in comment-thread anastomosation suggests that the procedure has a lasting temporal effect on commenting rates, but probably not in topical subject matter. More research is desperately required (and at the same time ethically repulsive) to determine whether the observed trends are case-specific or generalizable.

Heroes # 9, is it?

2010-01-13T13:58:00.005-05:00

for Cat's Cradle alone, but so much more too.

for Sometimes a Great Notion alone, but so much more too.

one more Kesey shot:

20K in 1 y

2010-01-13T00:27:00.008-05:00

Having deployed sophisticated computer modelling techniques, I am now prepared to formally predict that Teh Thread Everlasting will exceed 20,000 comments before its first anniversary on Feb. 24 2010.**
This prediction is based on conservative projections from current temporal commenting trends, as illustrated here:

(click to enlarge)
The pink dashed line is a best-fit 3rd-order polynomial calculated from the comment/time data shown in black, and forecast into the future. Note that this underestimates the effect (if any, Professor) of the recent anastomosation.*
The red line is the minimum rate needed to satisfy the prediction.

As far as I am aware, this is only the second example of a quantitative prediction in the history of the discipline of Blogospherical Science.

*UPDATE 1/17: it seems that anastomisation did have a positive effect on commenting rate, and that the Day of 20K is therefore likely to arrive even sooner than predicted above.

**UPDATE 1/27: This prediction turned out to be laughably conservative. People started commenting at ridiculous rates.
*shrug*
Data here.

My favorite zoology vids

2010-01-12T16:04:00.012-05:00

Sir David Attenborough’s Tree of Life (please start here!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6IrUUDboZo

(a little animal/vertebrate-centric but otherwise beautiful)

many more follow

Spiral cleavage

http://pharyngula.org/images/dextral_snail.mov

Amphioxus development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycHJMXUT2o0

Zebrafish development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahJjLzyioWM

Frog development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rumNod2ZXaM&NR=1

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nl68Nc_Dlc

Cambrian animals beautifully animated (yes, these existed; we have excellent fossils of each)(big .mov file takes a while to load; worth the wait)

http://www.phleschbubble.com/album/movies/phlesch_cambrian_01.mov

a ctenophore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbcnRVkzy8A

Zombie Snail & fluke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWB_COSUXMw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba7Po0ByX-g

cone snail eats

http://www.naturefootage.com/video_clips/RF08_006#

“sea angel” (pelagic nudibranch) kills and eats a “sea butterfly” (pelagic snail)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqUlKSGcI8Q

Very bizarre slug sex

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2tZLWIo9nY

On the Advantages of Skeletonlessness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-azBDt0kik

Disappearing octopus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCgtYWUybIE

Algae octopus

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/03/images/aculeatus_walk.mov

Mimic octopus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8oQBYw6xxc

Coconut octopus

http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/misc/hp_jumps/octopus/marg.html

and

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/12/octopus_carries_around_coconut_shells_as_suits_of_armour.php

and especially

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPnd_KzGdHI

Just plain bizarre octopus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-VAZGtNgsk

Squid flash

http://www.oceanfootage.com/oceans/search/search//|Sequence=2075508

Cuttlefish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ujRgSRYE9A

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqtfJpIz00

and (w/soundtrack)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIwjKcrxOOE

bioluminescence and cephalopods

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments.html

Vampire Squid from Hell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3CJIKKSUpg

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ZQH2Uzpew

Suicide cricket/nematomorph

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ylDNMNNwaE

tardigrade

http://www.baertierchen.de/sweets_e.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho2sPvza0oA

Spider drugs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHzdsFiBbFc

barnacle sex

http://publishing.royalsociety.org/media/proceedings_b/Barnacle%20copulation.wmv

barnacle sex in silly music video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd7o6ytz_LM

giant centipede catches bat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UROVfmY3NTA

Colbert learns of tongue-eating isopods

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/257752/december-07-2009/craziest-f--king-thing-i-ve-ever-heard---tongue-eating-parasite

really weird insect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ZGFrdbbBA

bees cook giant hornet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6m40W1s0Wc

assorted marine invertebrates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnStTpupI2s

Antarctic scavengers @ dead seal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG17TsgV_qI

swimming sea cucumber

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PdRt31FqDc

hagfish slime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb2EOP3ohnE

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYRr_MrjebA

(slime at about 3:45)

goblin shark

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjRSlnJ1rA4

walking catfish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10ilc_CEW2k

moray jaws

http://pharyngula.org/images/moray_sm.mov

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrMFPkpxe2Y

amazing fish jaws

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbGILi8p5Y8

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDU4CQWXaNY

anglerfish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RitJe16c3sM

psychedic hopping frogfish

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090227-psychedelic-fish-video-vin.html

barreleye fish (with transparent skull)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM9o4VnfHJU

or:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/photogalleries/fish-transparent-head-barreleye-picture/index.html

bullfrogs eat—or try to, anyway

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKcztOR6UYM

basilisk lizard runs on water—seriously!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw-sAUSmkfk

slo-mo hummingbird

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8vjYTXgIJw

incredible flyng penguins*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR4

giant explosive corkscrew duck penis (you were warned)

http://www.youtubevimeo.com/watch?v=9dfWzp7rYR48342932

bats fly, hover, walk & gallop

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/03/19/how-to-be-a-bat-life-in-motion/

dolphins blowing amazing bubbles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuVgXJ55G6Y

giraffe fight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7HCIGFdBt8

nicotinic synapses (#7)

http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/vis2007/show/index.html

Stanford students rap on chemical synapses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZundDVPIYw

Pinky & The Brain re brain anatomy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li5nMsXg1Lk

split brain

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo

Stanford students rap on the autonomic NS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5XnHtklFjI

Rube Goldberg animation (a metaphor for the physiological process of muscle contraction)

http://producten.hema.nl/

(let it load, then wait for it…)

A real Rube Goldberg machine…incredible

http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/player.swf?b=10&l=197&u=ILLUMllSOOAvIF//P_LxP92A42lCHCeeWCejXnHAS/c

childbirth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xath6kOf0NE

*just kidding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzhDsojoqk8

This is where one quotes Mark Twain

2010-01-09T14:39:00.006-05:00

A comment from Dania on The Thread Everlasting tapped into an interesting period in the history of The Thread when its death was prematurely predicted, and even requested, by a number of otherwise enthusiastic Threadizens. Here follow some laughably FAIL quotes, nostalgically evoking a simpler, less complicated, somehow more innocent time of days long gone by. Little could we have known at the time (March-April 2009) what glorious heights The Thread would soon reach. Is this Irony? I forget.

From the I have no idea subThread (comment numbers are internal):

RevBDC (@#1107): Someone needs to poke this thread between the eyes with a sharp stick and then smash it on a rock.

NoR,OM: PZ could close this thread and put it out of its misery.

ZombieRevBDC: poke then smash

ZombieRevBDC: POKE, SMASH, CLEAN, EAT

Rorschach: PZ,switch off the light in here.....:-)

SC,OM: Please kill this thread before it kills my laptop.

SDiM: This thread can now be left to die with a smile on its, uh, screen.

RevBDC: I wish I had a stick sharp and long enough and a rock... um... smashy enough to put this thread out of its misery.

Dania: I don't even want to think of what we will end up talking about if PZ doesn't kill this thread soon...

Josh: Sadly though, I think you're right; we will have to pop smoke on this thread at some point.

SC,OM (presciently, @#13210): Couldn't we agree to move this to another thread? Would that wreck the vibe? I don't want to have to keep turning my computer off and on...

Sphere Coupler: aaaaaannnnnnnd cut...that's a wrap folks, everybody did a swell job, help yourself to the coffee and doughnuts....The End...?

RevBDC: Now can we please send this thread to its eternal slumber?

'Tis: Yes, let's let this thread shuffle off its mortal coil. Far be it from any of us to post meaningless posts on this ever lengthening thread. Let it go, let it go. Let us reverently put this thread on a viking longboat, set the boat on fire, and let it drift into the sunset. No, wait, instead of a longboat, we should make a replica of Noah's ark. That would be more appropriate, don't you think? We should have a discussion about how this thread should be given the long farewell. To paraphrase Eric Boogle:
Shall we beat the drum slowly, shall we play the pipes lowly?
Shall rifles fir[e] o'er it as we lower it down?
Shall the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Shall the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

'Tis: But, once again, for FSM's sake, let this thread go gentle into that good night.

'Tis: I reiterate Rev BDC's heartfelt cry to let this thread cease to have posts made to it.

Rorschach: I suggested that about a (felt) year ago !

Josh: I agree. I think we can safely put this thread down. Let us, as we say in the biz, pop smoke.

RevBDC: Mihi ignosce. Cum homine de cane debeo congredi. [whatever the fuck that means]

SDiM: I join the chorus requesting no further posts on this thread

SDiM: I...repeat my call for no more posting on this particular thread

NoR,OM: May this thread rest in peace. *taps in the background, 21 gun salute*

SDiM (@#1375): I...ask, once more, for a cessation of further posting on this stinking zombie of an overripe and most certainly dead thread.

[There then follows considerable continued silliness, the unexpected return of Creationist and Flud Geologist Alan Clarke to the Thread, and a change in whiny requests from "kill The Thread" to "spawn a new subThread."]

PZ (@#1452): Thread finally closed. If you insist, continue on here.

[Thus, tragedy was narrowly averted.]

Breast cancer trends

2010-01-04T23:10:00.005-05:00

(click to enlarge)
Annual breast-cancer death rates
squares: "black" women
triangles: "white" women
curves are quadratic

Data source: National Cancer Center SEER database
"US Mortality Files, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rates are per 100,000 and are age-adjusted to the 2000 US Std Population (19 age groups - Census P25-1130)."

Heroes, # whatever

2009-11-08T11:11:00.001-05:00

HST: OK.

Heroes #7

2009-09-06T10:39:00.002-04:00

For lyrical and musical honesty.

Geckos of Ecuador

2009-07-20T14:07:00.005-04:00

actually a small subset thereof

Old Omnibus Thread-Everlasting update.

2009-07-16T10:54:00.073-04:00

Last updated 1/24/10 @ 19452 comments.

please to go here
thank you

Heroes #6

2009-06-17T14:13:00.005-04:00

posted without comment

Dead Kick Ass

2009-05-08T01:53:00.003-04:00

Nassau was pretty good musically and fun personally; MSG was awesome in both departments. Hoo!

Approach of The Dead

2009-04-22T22:21:00.004-04:00

So it looks like I'm going to both the ~~Nausea Mausoleum~~ Nassau Coliseum and Madison Square Garden shows this weekend, Friday and Saturday. Never seen a show at either venue, so I pick up a little East Coast deadheadcred.

I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends (people with whom I saw Grateful Dead shows as far back as 1980) and enjoying some improvised music and well-crafted songs. The setlists have been interesting and wholly unpredictable so far, eight shows and only I think 3 repeated songs, so that's fun. I'd love to hear certain tunes, of course (Here Comes Sunshine, Morning Dew, Crazy Fingers, etc.) but whatever.

It's a different band, and there's nothing wrong w/ that. *shrug* Nothin left to do but smile, smile, smile...

Heroes #5

2009-04-06T00:16:00.003-04:00

I quote from Blair Jackson's excellent liner notes to the recent archival Grateful Dead release, recorded in Feb. 1968:

...hipster hero and Merry Prankster Neal Cassady, of On the Road and Acid Test fame, driver of Kesey's psychedelic bus and one-man living conceptual art piece....[Bob Weir:]"He was the guy who was the most completely in-the-moment of anyone I've ever met."

S,AICWCSoA

2009-02-28T14:20:00.001-05:00

Soon, all internet communication will consist solely of acronyms.

You read it here first. (Or not.)

Heroes #4

2008-11-02T21:35:00.005-05:00

Miles Davis, finest musician of my lifetime IMO.

Love in vain

2008-10-31T16:40:00.002-04:00

I was inspired by this post over at Darren Naish's always-fascinating Tet Zoo blog to post one of my favorite photos (h/t Joe Bidwell)

My car is famous!

2008-10-01T12:07:00.001-04:00

Yes, my 1996 Jeep Cherokee is featured on Google Maps' Street View! See here.

Heroes #3

2008-08-15T17:40:00.002-04:00

That's George A. Bartholomew, my intellectual role model. Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and inspiring, if low-key, teacher of ecologically relevant physiology (his favored term). I was privileged to know him during my years at UCLA (his last few there), and I believe I was the last PhD student to have Bart on my committee. You can read about his many scientific accomplishments here, marvel at his academic genealogy (I'm on there!!!) here, and read his UC obituary here.

Missed it by that much...

2008-07-22T13:42:00.000-04:00

Where "it" was comment #1000
and "that much" was an hour and 41 minutes.
*shrug*

Countdown to crankiness

2008-07-21T17:53:00.000-04:00

PZ Myers sez: "if this turns into another thousand comment thread, I shall be very, very cranky." Current projections, based on data shown above (click for sharper view), are for crankiness to hit at or shortly after midnight tonight (dashed line is an eyeballed extrapolation). Quake and tremble, ye believers, for we should soon witness some serious crankiness.

Aaaaaa what's the point?

2008-05-05T22:13:00.001-04:00

You know? I mean, who cares?

Heroes #2

2008-04-29T17:13:00.002-04:00

In the land of the dark, the ship of the sun is drawn by the Grateful Dead

Heroes #1

2008-04-28T18:59:00.001-04:00

Darwin's Reach, an interdisciplinary conference, March 2009

ceremonial inaugural post

2008-04-28T18:27:00.000-04:00

"I blog, therefore I yam what I yam"
-Popeye Descartes