Tristan S. Rapp

"Whenever I return to the Maasai country, on the marches of southern Kenya and Tanzania, I find it at once both a thrilling and unsettling experience... a remote frontier, an inaccessible highland of nomadic warriors in whose company one still sees spears and bows and the fluttering red shuka garments"

It is the tiniest, most niche of all possible pet peeves, but Lord free me from book reviewers who point their camera at their yapping heads for 15 minutes instead of the actual book they are reviewing, whose contents and layouts are - with no disrespect - the principal interest.

@wrathofgnon I don't see the article mentioning it (on skimming), but the timing of a sudden appearance circa 500 AD does make one strongly wonder whether a certain set of canoe-boating sea-people might not have been involved.

Was the bow and arrow invented or introduced to the Americas in early 7th century A.D. New study suggest previous estimates confused atlatl dart pointe with arrowheads and puts a radically later date to bows. In the north atlatl and bow coexisted a thousand years, in the south the atlatl was completely and instantaneously replaced.

I am as annoyed by celebrity grandstanding as the next person, but "Touch grass, don't sell your soul to the comment flame wars and social media algorithms" is not exactly the kind of messaging I generally have in mind there.

"Not endlessly doomscrolling and rotting your mind on toxic algorithms is a luxury lifestyle" is a rather damning take. A person working 8-10 hours a day who did not do those things would be measurably happier than one who did. There are other forms of entertainment.

Delighted to share that Elephants and Their Fossil Relatives: A 60 Million Year Journey is now out! 🎉📘 Huge congratulations to authors Asier Larramendi and Marco Ferretti, and to artist Shu-yu Hsu for this magnificent achievement 👏🐘 Available here: amazon.com/dp/0691183775

Result from the Sulphur Mountain Formation #paleostream! This formation made it onto the wheel as it is the last refuge of the last eugeneodonts, the group that gave us Helicoprion. Most prominently we have here Fadenia, a late surviving durophagous member of this group...

@JusBrierley @PageauJonathan @UnsolAdv1641 Pageau is an excellent example of a man who seems genuinely incapable of answering a simple question simply. I don't doubt - I know - that some of his ideas are interesting, but often are the times he glides into something very close to a genuine word salad.

Orthodox thinker @PageauJonathan and atheist philosopher @UnsolAdv1641 sit down with me to discuss whether art, culture and human experience point to God. In a deep and rich conversation ranging across consciousness, science, religion, the incarnation and the resurrection they debate whether a Divine Logos or natural forces explain the reality we all encounter. ▶️ Watch or 🎧 listen to Ep 3 of Uncommon Ground 👉justinbrierley.com/uncommon-groun…

@Edaphosaurus They were wiped out from about 90% of their range, maybe more, by the earlier Amerindians

Kinda disingenuous to post a picture of them with Native Americans when they were wiped out by Europeans

Una madre Lince con sus retoños Lince ibérico 🇪🇦

It's so strange that this in Denmark perfectly ordinary, even mundane woodland critter, which is a common feature of our suburban yards and parks, is in Britain a major conservation crisis commanding loud cries for reforestation and rewilding to save them.

Demographic history of African cattle genetic diversity using ABC. Two waves of entrance of indicine cattle in Africa. Integration of genomic data with archaeological and historical records.

Megafauna in news again: "Cattle grazing at a nature reserve in the Yorkshire Dales has increased plant diversity by over 40%. Allowing native cattle breeds to roam large areas of the landscape at Ingleborough has also led to a five-fold increase in the number of butterflies."

@EduardHabsburg This is interesting, for the tendency towards digression into subplots (which I do agree is present) did not so much bother me in Monte Cristo, but it *did* greatly bother me with the Three Musketeers, with which I eventually entirely lost patience.

So I finally read, for the first time, THE COUNT OF MONTE CHRISTO by Dumas. What did I think? (Spoiler free) A good book, very entertaining, with fantastic moments and a compelling protagonist. Also, well, rather long. Is it a masterpiece? I hesitate. Mostly because Dumas was paid by the page, and resorted to chapter after chapter of "subplotitis". There are gazillions of characters, and sometimes entire chapters are devoted to boring sidequests. I tend to get impatient when that happens. And thus, it is far longer than it needed to be. In the end, it does come together in a satisfying way, but you are quite exhausted by that point. Also, I didn't quite warm to the protagonist. I know that others are calling this an absolute masterpiece. I don't. I thought THE THREE MUSKETEERS or QUEEN MARGOT was far more impressive. But go ahead and read it and form your own opinion!

Everyone was getting "brain fever" in 19th-century novels

@TheEsotericChr @dissidntdad Yeah, because that is literally what happened lol. The Himalayas were pressed up when the Indian plate collided into the Asian plate.

@dissidntdad Well they just kind of say “ohhh it’s before the mountain rose millions of years ago”

the atheists hate these types of discoveries.

@steven_lynn_ @ChivalryGuild Tigana was, in my opinion, a pretty solid and in places touching book

@ChivalryGuild I've read two of Kay's novels and found them both to be subpar. As far as I can tell he just does the same thing each time so I'm assuming I would dislike this one too, even though it's very highly regarded.

I fully expect this quasi-historical novel about "Rodrigo Belmonte" (Rodrigo de Vivar, aka El Cid) versus the "Jaddites" (Muslims) to be libtarded but am still deeply curious and will give it a go. Reports to follow.

@General_JWJ Observed for a few days the monastic office of Huolon's respawn times

@General_JWJ I used to do polyphasic sleep while farming the Thundering Onyx Cloud Serpent on the Timeless Isle

I used to do polyphasic sleep doing the tf2 halloween events at their peak to maximise my cosmetic loot drop collection with its 2h respawn timer

Moment of calm in a world of confusion March Hare