Dowbrigade

Doncha
hate it when you read a review of something in your area you wish you
had know about before it happened, so you could
of had a chance to actually go? Especially if its something weird, and
free, and in a beautiful venue?
Well, heads up….

CAMBRIDGE — The Harvard University Saxophone Quartet
will perform "Three
American Dances" by composer Edward P. Mascari of Hudson. The performance,
called Sax Talk, is part of Harvard University’s Arts First weekend and
will take place at Memorial Church, Harvard Yard, Harvard University,
Cambridge, on Saturday, May 7 at 4 p.m.

Admission is free. The facility is handicapped accessible.

Mascari’s composition, which was premiered and recorded by the Berlin
Saxophone Quartet, has been performed by many professional and college
ensembles in its eight year history.

In addition to the Mascari composition, the program will include works
by Carson Cooman, Andy Weiner and Daniel Dorf

from the Marlboro
Enterprise Online

Falcarius
utahensis was adapted for both ripping up plants and chasing down prey.
image from PaleoForms LLC, Provo, Utah

The fossil record seems so clear and convincing to the Dowbrigade
that current mainstream doubt about its veracity threatens the very foundations
of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. Even Galileo would
have a tough time these days.  Can you see him on Court TV, accused
of teaching Godless theory as fact?

Fossil-hunters working in the dusty Utah desert have caught a dinosaur
in the act of going vegetarian. The newly discovered species, which
lived about 130
million years ago, displays the hallmarks of adapting to a leafy diet.

The creature’s teeth have a shape that seems to be adapted to leaf shredding,
the researchers report. Similar teeth can be found in modern iguanas, for
example, a reptilian family that also has a varied diet.

Very like the Dowbrigade. Between our garden and health mania we are adapting
to leaf shredding, and our resemblance to an iguana has been oft remarked
upon.

Falcarius utahensis also has a slightly widened pelvis, Kirkland’s team
points out, which would have been necessary to accommodate the longer
gut needed to extract nutrients from plants.

That’s us! That explains our changing contours! We are evolving into a
Falcarius!

But the dinosaur’s legs reveal that it still has adaptations suited
for meat eating as well. The creature’s thigh bones were longer
than its
shin bones, suggesting that it could run at an impressive pace. "The legs
are still adapted for running after prey," says Kirkland.

Or tennis balls.

from the Journal Nature Online

Evolution article from the New York Times

The Hollywood Studios are starting to position the Big Guns for the
blockbuster summer movie season, when hordes of Americans crowd into
theaters to beat the heat and the boredom of summer reruns on TV.

One of those we are eagerly awaiting, and may actually pay to see on
the big screen, is the Fox Fantastic
Four movie. One of the original,
and most popular, Marvel title, it is one of the last to make it to the
movies.

This may be because of the technical challenges of convincingly recreating
a group consisting of a teenager who flies around in a comet-like ball
of flame, a guy with elastic
limbs that can stretch out hundreds of feet, a 400-lb guy who looks
like he’s covered with shards of cheap orange flowerpots, and a token
sexy
Babe you can’t even see, because she’s the Invisible Girl.

Well, given the state of special effects today, we are all expecting
something special out of this one. Apple’s Quick Time movie
trailer page has some tantilizing tastes.  Opens July 8.

from Fox, via Apple

Alex Beam has a funny/scary column in the Boston
Globe today on what he sees in the future for the Globe, and old-line
journalism in general…

It’s true, we dug our own grave. Can you imagine, we were still writing
about boring stuff like Social Security right up until just a couple
of years ago, when President Bush eliminated the program? Just because
she went to the University of Texas doesn’t mean she didn’t inherit Dad’s
political savvy. Jenna dynamited all those bleeding-heart Democratic
entitlements — welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, you name ‘em. ”Want a handout?
Go to Sweden!" I have to admit, that was a pretty clever campaign
slogan. Karl Rove would have been proud.

We at the Globe were lucky, in retrospect, to have been part of The New
York Times Co. When blogtrepreneur Nick Denton bought out the Times in
2010, some of us were fortunate to land jobs in the Gawker Media empire.
Maureen Dowd makes sure that Wonkette’s cellphone batteries are always
charged…

from the Boston Globe

These stories just keep on coming. The number of people
in our society with the knowledge to take advantage of these gaffes is
growing exponentially as the young conscienceless whippersnappers who
grew up with this stuff acquire the skills.

In this area, the only defense is a chaotic life. Good luck to anyone
who tries to steal the Dowbrigade’s identify, they have no idea what
they’re getting in for…

Arbella
Mutual Insurance Co. of Quincy was offering unrestricted access to
the Registry
of Motor
Vehicles
database
through
its own website
until a Salem man noticed the security breach and raised concerns
about the potential for identity theft.

Joel P. McNamee, 22, said he received some paperwork from his insurance
agent over the weekend and noticed a website address at the bottom
of one of the pages. The website, www.arbella.com
gave him
access to the Registry of Motor vehicles database.

He said he was able to look up anyone by name and obtain their address,
date of birth, license number, and driving history. In most cases,
he said, he was also able to obtain the driver’s Social Security number
by looking
at their historical records.

”Once you had the license number you could cross-reference it to get
all sorts of different things," he said. He said the personal
information contained on the database would be a treasure trove for
identity thieves.

from the Boston Globe