Friday, February 18, 2011

About Last Night

The lecture was better than a mountain of ice cream, and the beer flowed as if from a fountain. Even better, I was able to talk at length with Stephen Brusatte after the lecture, as we traveled to Manhattan together on the N train. Stephen's a great guy, his main field of inquiry regards "stem dinosaurs" of the Triassic Period, so we totally geeked out discussing the efforts to parse out dinosaur cladistics and to get rid of polyphyletic groups. Good times!

I'm going to be working a graveyard shift tomorrow (which is to say tonight), so I'll work on the post-lecture recap when I have enough time during the quiet moments to do it justice. Right now, I wouldn't say that I'm hung over, but I wouldn't say I wasn't hung over. My plan is to get some fresh air for a couple of hours (it's supposed to hit the 60's this afternoon), throw some more cabbage and pork products in the "perpetual" choucroute garni I've been working on all week, and get some shut-eye.

7 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Sleep is good. I learned that from extensive experimentation.
~

Hunger Tallest Palin (or whatever handle I posted under the last time) said...

get rid of polyphyletic groups.

First they came for the polyphyletic groups, and I said nothing...

OK two serious questions:

1. In general - birds or reptiles?
2. Re T. Rex - Scavenger, predator or a little of both?

TruculentandUnreliable said...

Dammit, I hate it when I feel insufficiently nerdy.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

1. In general - birds or reptiles?

More like a chicken than a lizard! "Reptilia" is a catch-all term which is paraphyletic unless the birds are included. Technically speaking, birds are Maniraptoran Theropods.

2. Re T. Rex - Scavenger, predator or a little of both?

Both, like all "apex predators". Almost no large terrestrial carnivores are exclusively one or the other.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Dammit, I hate it when I feel insufficiently nerdy.

That doesn't happen too often, does it?

TruculentandUnreliable said...

Even less often than I feel sufficiently cool.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Even less often than I feel sufficiently cool.

Summers do tend to be hot in your part of the world...