Wow. I just realized it has been forever since I did a reading update. It's been a relatively light period right now: I blew threw my reading material faster than planned and I'm considering more books to order. However, there's a go-no go decision at work about aside project I have that I am awaiting judgment on. If I get the ethical green light, then it'll really shape my next book purchases with a vengeance. If I don't, that will as well. I have been promised a response by Thursday of next week. We shall see!
I finished Horns and Beaks. It was okay. There was one rather good paper on the paleobiology of chasmosaurs, a type of ceratopsian. It was the one paper I really liked in the whole of the book. If they'd done that same sort of idea with a form of 'duckbill' I would have thought the book as a whole was a very good one. However, mostly, I didn't. I'm a little disappointed, actually, because I am more interested in the dinos as organisms and their place in the Mesozoic ecology than defending whether or not one species or another should be differentiated from another based on bone morphology. Necessary that, but not my area of interest.
I also read Dr Peter Ward's latest book, Under a Green Sky. It's pretty good. There are some bits that are obnoxious (re human cultures in the tropics vs temperates). There are bits that are very good science wise. Of course, his narrative is pretty good too. His big Oy here is that he tries to make a case for vulcanism to be the Grand Unified Mass Extinction Theory (gotta write that post, damnit). He walks through some of the mass extinctions (major and minor) and makes predictions based on anoxia in the oceans that most of the time life gets mopped by the nasty side effects of major vulcanism. He does point out that the KT is unique and that the meteor did the deed. While predictions are good, the certainty that he espouses his views on vulcanism uber alles is rather annoying. I do think that vulcanism is one of the major drives of mass extinction. However, I have to say I would argue that it is one of the mechanisms that have it happen rather the Grand Unifying Theory. To say otehrwise is a wee bit annoying until the research has been done. A little more caution needs to be used here.
I also read David Raup's The Nemesis Affair. It was interesting. I have to say that periodicity is annoying to me. I do not for a second believe it to be anything other than wishful thinking. Whether it's the theory that there's a companion star, planet x, traversing the galactic plane, or whatnot, it's simply not there to be found, really. People seem to be looking for some sort of order in something that's inherently random. Anyways, it was an interesting read simply because it documented a failed scientific concept that was approached as serious hypothesis. That was interesting. It was well worth learning about.
Then there was The Emergence of Animals. It was an interesting read. I realized a bit late that it is a bit dated though: it was published in 1990. While I am sure that it has a lot of good stuff in there, I don't know enough about the transition between the Vendian/Ediacarian ecologies to Cambrian Ecology to make much in the way of pronunciations. There were a few 'hmmms', but lack of knowledge stills my typing here. When I get around to reading more on the subject I'll have more to say. For now, knotch this one in the interesting category.
I also got in my kookie immigration book, Opening the Borders by Larry Blasko (whose son works at the Heritage Foundation, boggle). I bought this as a counterpoint to my other kookie immigration book purchase Annexing Mexico. Don't worry: both books were bought used. The idea was supposed to be that these were similar but opposed central ideas and probably ones that could not be adopted truthfully. Amusingly, I found out after the fact, merely because I was not paying attention, that both books were published by the same publisher. Both books also used the same obnoxious oversized type and mini pages. Anyways, Opening the Borders was supposed to be a 'liberal' idea and Annexing Mexico the 'conservative' one. When Blasko stated that he got lots of help from the Heritage Foundation...well...that settled that. *bemused look* Anyways, editorializing aside, the central idea of OtB is that we ought to move Mexico into a Compact of Free Association. To make his case, the author goes out of his way to belittle and demean the other points of view. Indeed he also makes some statements that are patently false and contradictory (frex: all Mexicans that come here plan on going back (and do) yet they assimilate as do their children. ummm...) or somewhat distasteful (re a lot of comments about Mexican culture). I have some rebuttal posts coming up on this as part of my delayed 'Si! Mexico Yes! series, but it'll take time.
Finally, i went out and bought a copy of Eric Flint's last volume in the Belisarius series. I did this as a filler and thought that I wanted to finish the series since I had originally read it and liked it. oy. I really wish I hadn't. I didn't finish the book. I merely put it to the side after reading about half. I actually thought I'd rather reread Evolution by that humanity hater, Stephen Baxter, than continue. And I don't care for Baxter much. Dance of Time was boring, dull, and tedious. I didn't care about any of the characters and found their actions...implausible at best and down right stupid quite frequently. I stopped caring and simply put the book down. That's something that I truly, rarely do.
That's it for now. I'm going to probably order more about things paleo, Mexican history, immigration history, Russian politics, and books for the project. If it gets deemed nonissue by work. Gotta keep the job even if I want to do the fun stuff. No big announcements come Thursday though. Sorry. I want to be under the radar for a while. heh.
I finished Horns and Beaks. It was okay. There was one rather good paper on the paleobiology of chasmosaurs, a type of ceratopsian. It was the one paper I really liked in the whole of the book. If they'd done that same sort of idea with a form of 'duckbill' I would have thought the book as a whole was a very good one. However, mostly, I didn't. I'm a little disappointed, actually, because I am more interested in the dinos as organisms and their place in the Mesozoic ecology than defending whether or not one species or another should be differentiated from another based on bone morphology. Necessary that, but not my area of interest.
I also read Dr Peter Ward's latest book, Under a Green Sky. It's pretty good. There are some bits that are obnoxious (re human cultures in the tropics vs temperates). There are bits that are very good science wise. Of course, his narrative is pretty good too. His big Oy here is that he tries to make a case for vulcanism to be the Grand Unified Mass Extinction Theory (gotta write that post, damnit). He walks through some of the mass extinctions (major and minor) and makes predictions based on anoxia in the oceans that most of the time life gets mopped by the nasty side effects of major vulcanism. He does point out that the KT is unique and that the meteor did the deed. While predictions are good, the certainty that he espouses his views on vulcanism uber alles is rather annoying. I do think that vulcanism is one of the major drives of mass extinction. However, I have to say I would argue that it is one of the mechanisms that have it happen rather the Grand Unifying Theory. To say otehrwise is a wee bit annoying until the research has been done. A little more caution needs to be used here.
I also read David Raup's The Nemesis Affair. It was interesting. I have to say that periodicity is annoying to me. I do not for a second believe it to be anything other than wishful thinking. Whether it's the theory that there's a companion star, planet x, traversing the galactic plane, or whatnot, it's simply not there to be found, really. People seem to be looking for some sort of order in something that's inherently random. Anyways, it was an interesting read simply because it documented a failed scientific concept that was approached as serious hypothesis. That was interesting. It was well worth learning about.
Then there was The Emergence of Animals. It was an interesting read. I realized a bit late that it is a bit dated though: it was published in 1990. While I am sure that it has a lot of good stuff in there, I don't know enough about the transition between the Vendian/Ediacarian ecologies to Cambrian Ecology to make much in the way of pronunciations. There were a few 'hmmms', but lack of knowledge stills my typing here. When I get around to reading more on the subject I'll have more to say. For now, knotch this one in the interesting category.
I also got in my kookie immigration book, Opening the Borders by Larry Blasko (whose son works at the Heritage Foundation, boggle). I bought this as a counterpoint to my other kookie immigration book purchase Annexing Mexico. Don't worry: both books were bought used. The idea was supposed to be that these were similar but opposed central ideas and probably ones that could not be adopted truthfully. Amusingly, I found out after the fact, merely because I was not paying attention, that both books were published by the same publisher. Both books also used the same obnoxious oversized type and mini pages. Anyways, Opening the Borders was supposed to be a 'liberal' idea and Annexing Mexico the 'conservative' one. When Blasko stated that he got lots of help from the Heritage Foundation...well...that settled that. *bemused look* Anyways, editorializing aside, the central idea of OtB is that we ought to move Mexico into a Compact of Free Association. To make his case, the author goes out of his way to belittle and demean the other points of view. Indeed he also makes some statements that are patently false and contradictory (frex: all Mexicans that come here plan on going back (and do) yet they assimilate as do their children. ummm...) or somewhat distasteful (re a lot of comments about Mexican culture). I have some rebuttal posts coming up on this as part of my delayed 'Si! Mexico Yes! series, but it'll take time.
Finally, i went out and bought a copy of Eric Flint's last volume in the Belisarius series. I did this as a filler and thought that I wanted to finish the series since I had originally read it and liked it. oy. I really wish I hadn't. I didn't finish the book. I merely put it to the side after reading about half. I actually thought I'd rather reread Evolution by that humanity hater, Stephen Baxter, than continue. And I don't care for Baxter much. Dance of Time was boring, dull, and tedious. I didn't care about any of the characters and found their actions...implausible at best and down right stupid quite frequently. I stopped caring and simply put the book down. That's something that I truly, rarely do.
That's it for now. I'm going to probably order more about things paleo, Mexican history, immigration history, Russian politics, and books for the project. If it gets deemed nonissue by work. Gotta keep the job even if I want to do the fun stuff. No big announcements come Thursday though. Sorry. I want to be under the radar for a while. heh.
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