Saturday: Hili dialogue

16 thoughts on “Saturday: Hili dialogue”

1. Sugar glider-man – because even criminals can’t stand that much cuteness.

2. I was gonna say something cynical-smarty-pants about the piano one. Like hey they can put the dots wherever they want and make it sound reasonable yada yada. Luckily I clicked on it first before opening mouth lol.

3. The earth sounds a little flat, and it lost Antarctica.

   Glen Davidson

   1. And Greenland.

   2. I think Antarctica was infra-sound, it was there, but below our Hearing Threshold.
      Omitting Greenland is unforgivable.
      Now I want to hear it upside down, with South America, Southern Africa, OZ and NZ in the high notes, and Antarctica will probably be ultrasound there. 🙂
      What a wonderful idea this “Sound of Earth on a Piano”!
      Wonder what the quip about Africa was about.

      1. Toto … Ceiling Cat spare us!

4. I am mildly distracted by the piano keyboard being reversed with the high notes on the left. However, it does allow for New Zealand to make a groovy little ending.

   1. Nope, you’re ‘sitting’ on the right of the keyboard, look at the position of the ‘ebony’ keys. The North is at the right of the keyboard, the South on the left. No reversal.
      Of course, as I pointed out above, it is arbitrary. Maps that put the north on top is also just an arbitrary convention in the first place.

      1. Oh yeah! Guess I couldn’t imagine sitting on the map to play. 🙂

5. The Kiwi’s, most mammal-like of birds, did not completely lose their hind toe, although it is small, and did not fuse their three other toes, but they do have a mammal-like footpad allowing them to walk silently.
   The Syrrhaptes sandgrouse’s feet are stunning, an example of convergent evolution, it appears. What pushed them to develop mammal-like paws?
   I mean, the evolution of many mammal-like traits of the Kiwi’s is clear: no indigenous land mammals in NZ (apart from 2 or 3 bats, the most ground dwelling bats of all, btw), so they occupied a mammal niche, but why the Tibetan sandgrouse?

   1. but why the Tibetan sandgrouse?

      Probably traction. A pad conforming to the surface will grip fairly well, especially since the foot can push against stronger projections.

      You see some pads on a ptarmigan’s foot as well, yet they still have three long claws (and a small fourth claw)–but ptarmigans still perch on branches.
      The Tibetan soundgrouse clearly isn’t going to perch, but I don’t think they’d have much opportunity to do so, either.

      I think traction would matter a lot for them, too, especially in fleeing predators. They still fly, but I suspect that they’re using their feet to first accelerate, then to help launch them into the air.

      Glen Davidson

      1. soundgrouse–weird

      2. Sounds like a reasonably good hypothesis. Perching is out indeed, I was in the Central Asian high plateau: not a single tree for hundreds of km’s.
         Must also be something that when escaping predators running is energetically cheaper than flying, if you can get away with it.
         In the desert-like plateau, energy must be important, no plethora of food.

6. Jane Goodall is a great primatologist and a possibly even greater conservationist. I’m great fan. Read most (all I could lay my hands on) of her books. Highly recommended.
   Westerners generally do not realise that more than half of all the great primatology studies were done by Japanese biologists. Frans de Waal (a great primatologist himself) wrote a nice & very readable book about it: “The Ape and the Sushi Master”. Highly recommended.

7. I apologize for this but I’d like to say:

   I just listened to the entirety of Sam Harris’ latest conversation with Sean Carroll after hoping not to.

   Also loving the travelogues.

8. An eclectic selection to be sure, and a perfect way to start Saturday.

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