Taking Collin's Sage Advice

Thanks, Collin, for the suggestion to keep the threshold low and treat posts as small things. No need to be brilliant. (But people might read this! Must be brilliant! Or at least deep. Right? Right?)

It's a gloomy gloomy day outside. I guess really it's just worth one "gloomy." I used to live in Milwaukee for goodness sake. Now *there*'s some gloom to be had. Way below zero gloom. And though I'm only a few degrees north of Carbondale now, I seem to be really feeling those few degrees difference. Got spoiled with the short and fitful winters there.

But, hey, birds are smarter than we think. I should have linked to that NY Times science article yesterday. Now there's something I can do. Link to interesting NY Times articles. But that was yesterday. Still, I can briefly summarize some of the interesting parts: crows on a street in Japan wait for a red light, walk out into the street and leave nuts there, cars run over the nuts, the crows eat the now open nuts. It's a plan. And then MP told me about the African gray parrot who calls the dog over to his cage, bites the dog on the head and says, "Stupid dog." As my SO said, it's the birds. They're the ones who'll take over.

And one more thing from yesterday's science news: a piece by the former science editor, about (male) scientists' apparent inability to take her seriously. (Now there's a research question: if, as the Harvard prez suggests, women might be genetically incapable of doing math, is it also the case that men are genetically incapable of recognizing a woman who is good at math?) One scientist, after being introduced to her, looked around and asked where that new "little twerpy girl," the new science editor, was. "That would be me," she answered.

That deserves another egads. Even though I never say egads.