Fork The Penguin - velociraptors on ice

[Velociraptor-style dinos] had one of the most efficient respiratory systems of all animals, similar to that of modern diving birds like penguins, fossil evidence shows.
It fuelled their bodies with oxygen for the task of sprinting after prey

It seems that in yet another way penguins are indeed a beastie to be feared. They can out-dive, out-swim, out-cold & now out-breathe yet another set of competitors...

So it seems reasonable to propose... that if you want some genes to blend with yours in search of the perfect being (give or take a bilennia or few), you could probably do a lot worse than borrowing from Aptenodytes/Eudyptula. (-:

Comments

etbe said…

A post like this one really needs a like to some supporting evidence...

11 November, 2007 15:56

Leon RJ Brooks said…

I was hoping that the main link for the post would be sufficient.

Unless BBC have changed the thing.

No, not yet.

11 November, 2007 19:46

etbe said…

I didn't see the link because in most cases a link on the title will be a permalink for the item.

http://etbe.coker.com.au/2007/09/06/citing-references-in-blog-posts/

To avoid future confusion you might want to consider the suggestions in my above post.

12 November, 2007 19:54

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

Plantagenet Penguinista

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