The Most Unusual Looking Creatures in the World

Several people have recently directed my attention to a set of images floating around the internet, described as "animals you didn't know existed." Its a nice set, but I did know about most of them, even things like the markhor, babirusa, and the dhole (which I only recently discovered). I wrote about the snub-nosed monkey previously; the main reason no one knows about it is because it was only discovered 2.5 years ago.

However, there were plenty of animals I did not recognize. The arthropods on the list are bizarre and were previously unknown to me. Same goes for dolphins on the list. That Irrawaddy fellow is quite a looker. Just what we all needed: a dolphin that appears as creepy as dolphins actually are.

Yet, the most striking animal among the bunch, for me, was the sunda colugo. I thought I'd seen every strange looking primate species there was.

I once spent a long night on Long Street with my colleague, Bellerica. We ended up at Neighborhood, probably my favorite low-key drinking establishment in Cape Town. It was her first time there, and I knew she'd be taken by the collection of old animal books published by Life in (I think) the 60's.

She recognized just about every creatures in those books, or at very least all of the primates. Which was certainly more than I knew. I found myself at a considerable disadvantage, with minimal zoological foundations to rely on. It was an informative experience for me, and she certainly enjoyed the old books and the photos within.

The sunda colugo is often known as the sunda flying lemur, even though it isn't a real lemur. It actually isn't even a real primate, which might explain why I've never heard of them before. They are from the order Dermaptera, which sits alongside order Primates within the mirorder Primatomorpha. Even tarsiers, lemurs, and lorises are primates, even if they're prosimians, and thus not monkeys.

Sunda colugos aren't called "flying lemurs" for nothing. They can glide like flying squirrels, using flaps of skin stretched between their arms and legs. They can soar a hundred meters and lose only ten meters of altitude, turning in the air to control their course all the while. Like many creatures who glide, they spend the majority of their time in the forest canopy, and like many other creatures who live in the canopy, they subsist on leaves, and supplement with other nutritious plant materials they come across.

I am reminded of gibbons, the lesser apes, who also live in this part of the world and spend their lives among the treetops. Gibbons aren't doing very well for themselves these days; most species are endangered, many critically so. Fortunately, colugos have proved adaptable. Their population is not as strong as it has been, but they are doing fine.

Lighter Fare

I don't know enough Japanese to understand what the narrator is saying. I'm not even sure what's going on, this doesn't look like a normal mating scene. The monkeys are probably acting weird because they are in a cramped space and the keepers have been trying to get them to mate for hours. There is clearly some creative editing taking place.

Also, these are mandrills, another member of the Papionini Tribe, but they are not baboons. And a final word of warning: this video is NSFW.

When you look into the monkey, the monkey looks into you

Monkey steals camera to snap himself

A macaque monkey in Indonesia took a camera from a wildlife photographer before snapping himself in a variety of poses.

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The black macaque, one of the more eerie looking monkeys around. I say this a lot, but there's something about those eyes. However, one must remember that while these two pictures are quite a sight, there are probably seventy more of the monkey rubbing his fur against the lens. I'd really like to see all of those, actually.

The picture I've selected is almost certainly an example of aggressive behavior, however. It would be easier to tell with a few more frames, but the bared teeth and the lifted eyebrows. This monkey is looking into a dark, reflective lens, and does not realize that this mirror image is him. He believes it is a different monkey, at least something that is being threatening right back at him.

This reminds me of an idea we had among the researchers. We were out there all day, and as I have noted, the baboons have a particular liking for cars. Since the baboons would swarm over a car, whether new or old, we've been able to witness some interesting behaviors. A slightly reflective windshield does not differ much from a camera lens, and if the monkeys looked into the windshield, one could assess whether or not they were self-aware based on their reaction to seeing their own image.

This also could have yielded an extra effect over the range of ages. A car is sort of like a trophy for certain baboons. The adults give a damn one way or the other about the cars as long as they aren't trying to run the troop over. The largest of the juveniles, even subadults, quickly lay claim to the highest point on the car (the roof), leaving the hood, side mirrors, trunk, and bumpers for the smaller baboons to ensconce themselves on.

The mirrors and windshields created interesting effects from what I did observe on the side. For the young ones, the mirrors were clearly frightening, so there's no theory of mind there. I never determined if the older males reacted in the same way, as they messed around with the mirrors much less. The potential exists for something bigger, however. Put some big mirrors under the windshield, and watch all the monkeys react. You could even introduce a laser pointer to the experiment and to take a kind of mirror recognition approach.

I do not think that an experiment like that would yield positive results, though. A little evidence exists that macaques can pass mirror self-recognition tests, but the majority of research has indicated that they cannot. Baboons might be a different story, but baboons are even more socially adept than macaques, which means that their intelligence is focused on understanding conspecifics, but not necessarily themselves.

Properly controlling this experiment would be kind of a nightmare, but it might have been well suited enough for a pilot study. The large sample size and strong spread of individuals in different age groups is a major strength of working with baboons in general. To my knowledge, not much longitudinal work has been done in wild baboons where the focus has been on the juvenile years. This is a time where social bonds are more malleable, and less clear to everyone. It would be great to better understand social and cognitive development during these formative years, but I freely admit that several lifetimes of work would probably be required to lay the foundations of this research.

More Baboon Video

There's a new episode of Baboons with Bill Bailey out:

I also discovered that they're taking the eps down after a couple of weeks, so absolutely watch this one as soon as you have the time. Its mostly Da Gama baboons, but there's a few minutes of Tokai, featuring the young male, Clint.

That guy has got nothing. I ought to feel sorry for him since the troop he comes from is overloaded with males, and he's the youngest and smallest out of them, but he never made himself stand out. There are some pretty exceptional young baboons in that troop, if I may say so myself... More on that later.

I don't like the guy much, but my bet is still on Dani.

My monkeys are famous on the internet!

Okay not really. Not yet. There's only a few hundred views at time of this posting. But its TV! Real... British TV...

Another thing about this video is that its quite recent. Not so recent as Fred's untimely demise, as that baboon plays a major role in this video. Its quite a good video, too, comapred to the media I'm used to seeing surrounding these baboons. Bill Bailey doesn't make any judgements on what the baboons are doing, and he mostly chastises humans for being clearly dumb and not protecting their valuables. There are several minor errors, and more than a few leaps to conclusions, but that is The Science talking.

The Tokai troop in this video is my troop, though. You won't recognize the names because they have been changed to protect the innocent. Though one of these days I may reveal the unadulterated truth of these baboon tales. Dani's certainly grown into the hide and build of an alpha male, though.

There are some oddities (minor errors, perhaps, as I alluded to earlier), which I could go on about for pages, but I'll stick to some of the more interesting ones. Bailey implies that the Smitz baboons know that the whales are why the humans come to that area. I won't rule out the possibility that they might be doing this, but Occam's Razor suggest otherwise. Have a look at the terrain - its steep fynbos all around. That troop doesn't need to know about whales or the whale watching season, they only need to know that foolish humans with food tend to congregate along that coast line on a regular basis. Then they can peer down from where they might sleep on the outcroppings and see if the humans are lining up as easy pickings on any given day.

In Tokai, Whitey is far from the oldest female around. She wasn't even one of the females I included in the Old Ladies Club. The leg injury is not likely to be permanent. There is a Limper in the other troop, who I figured would recover, but simply never did, however, so Whitey might be stuck that way. Hard to say. As the film shows, and as I always say, being a female baboon is rough. Easy work for the filmmakers, on the other hand; there is a good chance that any day they were to come by, one of the big males would pick on one of the females. I did like the fact that Bailey acted properly confused as to what particular reason Dani had for chasing Berta on this particular day.

Even if you don't care for the narration, the footage is some of the best (and longest) you'll find anywhere. Definitely worth the watch. It would have been worth it just for that shot of Stettler, sitting in the forest. The old man always was my favorite.

Human Ethology: On Social Networking

I dislike the Facebook (tFB) - that's no secret. One reason is because of this fascinating article about demographics of populations who use different social networking sites. But the real reason is because I'm not on board with the "social networking is the future (of innovation/interaction/huuurgle/etc )" crew is that I just happen to think that its unproductive and unhealthy. Don't get me wrong, I'm from the Internet, and I even am willing to agree that moderate levels of internet browsing helps with work. Hell, I won't even deny that maybe tFB is the future. But that doesn't mean I'm going to say its a good thing. Have a look back at my previous Human Ethology writings: in short tFB isn't friendly with our ethology. Sucks, I know.

The reason I bring this up is because a short while ago, I was linked to an article about how tFB is bad news for people's self-esteem. Aha! I thought to myself, Now that's what to see, meaning either my hunches are getting confirmed, or tFB is not only meritless, but a legitimately negative insitution!

Then I was reading one of my blogs the other day, and was surprised to find myself reading an article which spoke of a recently published paper which indicated that tFB improves one's self-esteem. Now this provides a bit of a conundrum worth investigation, I thought.

Well, let's first have a gander at the more recent of the two. This "mirror, mirror" article is obviously about self-esteem derived from looking at images of one's self. The real-life test is, incredibly enough, having subjects look at themselves in a mirror. Okay. And on theFaceBook? Looking at your own profile.

So the results imply that one gains more self-esteem looking at one's own self-generated profile than ones "physical" profile. This immediately comes back to the dichotomy of stated versus revealed preference. A person's tFB profile is stated information, it is written by the individual according to their choices and beliefs. A mirror reflection is revealing information, it tells no lies, unless one is wearing makeup.

That's all well and good, but the authors, or at very least, the press, would argue that these findings suggest that tFB use in general is better for one's self-esteem than living in the real-world.

Slight problem: I may not be an average tFB user (in fact I hope that I am not), but I don't spend a lot of time looking at my profile. Particularly under the newest layout, its awfully difficult for anyone to easily see the complete contents of one's profile. What's allegedly the best part about tFB, and certainly what takes up most people's time, are the status updates, photos, quizzes, games, etc. Dealing with other people is what takes up the majority of time spent on tFB.

Which is where the original paper comes back into play. Except not as much as you would think. The TIME article, from which I was lead to the scholarly paper, strongly implied that people were more miserable on tFB.
Yet,the actual overview of the paper tells a different tale:

"In a series of five experiments, the study— which was inspired by the Facebook envy experience though does not explicitly address it— identified several intersecting psychological factors that underlie the grass-is-greener phenomenon. The first two experiments showed that people consistently underestimate how often other people have negative emotions, while overestimating how often they have positive ones."

Emphasis mine. Well then.

Blogger seldom angers me in a substantial way, but when it deletes my whole post for reasons I do not comprehend and refuses to let me undo, I get mad. And delayed. Everything should have a built in revisioning system.

By the time I realized what was going on while I was reading the articles and writing this post the first time around, it was "too late." There's not more to be said on the relevance of these two articles. "Mirror, Mirror" is limited by its odd assumption about the importance of profile information and viewing, and "Misery," while a solid paper in its own right, doesn't actually gather any evidence directly related to tFB activities.

The two can hardly be compared under the circumstances. Thus, the moral remaining with us: the press is a difficult creature to interact with.
Read the actual papers, and if you can't do that, at least real the abstracts. I skim a lot of papers, read quite few, since so many pass across my desk, but I will always read the abstracts. From the abstract of "Misery":

"Taken together, these studies suggest that people may think they are more alone in their emotional difficulties than they really are."

That's quite a finding, regardless of not being directly tied to tFB. Ehh, it didn't deserve the attention anyway.

Instantaneous Evolution

Gorilla strolls on hind legs

Behavior might give him 'height advantage to look over the wall' at feeding time. A gorilla at a British animal park has achieved fame for walking upright on his hind legs like a human.

Read more...

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Try not to get tired of that GIF. I know I won't.

I don't have all that much to say about this discovery. Its a single gorilla who developed this talent in adulthood. There's no epigenetics madness going on here.

I think the most interesting (read: cold and unfeeling) thing we serve to learn from this dude is how his skeleton is shaped. Can he pull this off with a standard gorilla skeleton? Or are their subtle differences in his physical form which could shed light on which were the first developments in early hominid precursors (Ardipithecus and friends) which lead to bipedal locomotion.

Also this dude weighs almost 500 pounds, so these leisurely strolls are super awesome.


Edit: Pic link has been TRANSFORMED into a youtube video with more footage and interviews and all kinds of shit. Also, the original GIF was of a different gorilla...

Is the monkey touching the man, or the man touching the monkey?

Don't tell anyone, but I've been trying to stick to a Wednesday posting schedule lately. I'm midway through a full post, but I've been writing an awful lot of important stuff lately, and Firefox is making it a bloody difficult job to finish this one.

Here's another sweet youtube video to excuse my need for an extension till tomorrow.



Don't mess with the macaques. I've got footage of squirrel monkeys crawling all over me, but they're no where near that size, and there weren't even anywhere close as many, either.

Strange Days

So this is on the internet now.

Thanks again, Japan. I have been watching this video several times a day,  and after such exposure, I could not help but begin to think (also thanks to the prodding of others) how this combination of behaviors could come to pass.

At its core, this is a straight-forward example of imprinting. It helps to look at the original video source, which is here. If the comments are to be believed (and I know I am asking a lot for anyone, anywhere, ever, to believe youtube comments), then the pig and monkey were without mothers, and imprinted on each other. Part of this is very reasonable, and quite obvious. The monkey is clearly treating the pig like its mother. I'm not sure about the pig, as I am not much of an armchair swine ethologist.

There are a few oddities about this video, which I intend to discuss. The story probably is not so clear as "akeminxx" would lead us to believe.

Returning to the pig for a moment, I don't know how I feel saying that the pig is imprinted with the baby as its mother. I also don't even know how old the pig is. Imprinting on adults is astronomically difficult in most animals, though. A telling moment in the video comes when the monkey falls off, and the pig bolts. From this, I would guess that the pig and the monkey were put together at some prior date, and the monkey imprinted on the pig. The pig is effectively domesticated, and when placed in such close quarters with the monkey at all hours, there really wasn't much to do but submit. Pigs are smart creatures, too.

And how about that monkey? Like I said, the monkey is clearly treating the pig like as mother. I'm not experienced enough to identify the species from the infant's appearance alone, but if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say this is a Japanese Macaque, seeing as they are popular critters... and this is in Japan.

These monkeys (as do baboons) ride their mothers on the belly, usually, but as they grow older, they will often ride on-top, in a very similar hold as they would on the belly. But they cling to their mother, and generally their mother only. I do not think a screaming fit like that put on display by this baby monkey would ensue unless the animal was separated from its "mother." So there you go: pig-mama it is.

The backwards part is very strange, though. In the baboons, one would occasionally see very young infants climb aboard their mother's bellies backwards, but this behavior was quickly rectified by the mother before she started to carry the baby anywhere. I've not yet thought of a good reason for why this baby monkey would ride backward. It might be that the animal began riding backward by chance, or some small reason, and since the pig was unable to adjust this behavior like a monkey mother, the backwards behavior stuck. Maybe there's even a semi-legitimate reason for the monkey to hold on backwards, perhaps the position affords a better hold on the pig's flanks. I would think that at this age, the monkey would much prefer to look forward than get a slightly better handhold on some tufts of pig hair, but hey, imprinting is a powerful and strange thing. There are just too many thing I don't know and cannot infer from watching two minutes of youtube.

These are two of my favorite things

...nor do I allow this blog to become an interior clone of Cute Overload or Zooborns. But, exceptions can, and must be made. And its the weekend.

I don't know much about Long-tailed macaques, but it does seem quite unusual for a male monkey to be so attached to a "child." I'd rather not taint this precious moment with ethological analysis, at least this time. Go look at the rest of the pictures.

Oh, and this one:

Next time, baboons for reals.

Fake Genetics

I try not to let this blog deteriorate into place I would splatter with arbitrary links, but this one is deserving, particularly because of the conversation it provokes. Also, its a bloody Friday afternoon.

Rare Breeds Petunias has a straight forward premise and approach: take a random assortment of petunias, and start breeding a colony of them. You can simulate n generations of petunias, and their traits will be passed on based on legit genetic models. Its simpler than breeding for petunia traits in the real world, for sure. Its also a flash game.

So, I've managed to develop RSI, a condition which, when conjoined with the fact that my journal is still absent, makes it extremely challenging for me to be able to recount myriads of hilarious monkey hijinx. However, the journal will be resurfacing very soon (one can't get these things out of order...), and with the aid of the modern science of ergonomics, my hands are doing much better. In the meantime, there's not much at all I can do, which in short, is a real pain... But I think I have one or two plays secreted away for special occasions.

Drunken Monkey Stance

Drunk baboons plague Cape Town's exclusive suburbs

The sun is setting over South Africa's oldest vineyard and the last of the wine-tasting tourists are climbing onto their buses. But one large family group has no intention of leaving – and there is little the management can do about it.

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First, a few notes about this article:

• I've been to Groot Constantia many times, sometimes for leisure, and sometimes in search of the baboons in question.
• Never seen them intoxicated, though.
• I believe that the photographer who took the pictures was one who I met out in the field. If I'm correct, he chose a good day; the baboons were having a great deal of fun around a pond.
• I had no idea Nelson Mandela lived in Constantia. I have a feeling that means he has one house, of many, in that suburb. I was under the impression that he spent most of his time in and around Guateng. Maybe not these days, since he's originally from Eastern Cape.
• I can't say I've heard of anyone mentioned by name in the article, except Justin O'Raian. That said, I've never met him (nor anyone else in the story).

Anyway, have a read. Its from a British news source, not a South African one, but most of the story appears to be based on personal accounts and I have no idea what manner of fact checking took place. The harvest season was months ago, though, and there haven't been any grapes on the vines since then. Hardly constitutes news.

A Bit of Humor

I was once an avid reader of Fuck You, Penguin, but that blog faded into the ether for me a number of years ago. Now he has a bloody book! It took a particular post like this being sent my way to recapture my attention of a brief moment.

Honestly, it might be this picture that I found to be the most captivating aspect of the post. The photo manages to capture the silliness of monkey behavior via the stick in the mouth, as well as the sleekness of the animal in its seemingly perfectly groomed coat. And the eyes. Always the eyes. They've got that perfect intensity I've gotten so used to seeing among the males of my troops.

The mandrill was once thought to be a type of baboon; categorized under the same genus: papio. In more recent years, the mandrill and the drill have been given their own genus, but they're still recognized as being close relatives of the baboons, and if you ask me, the resemblance is clear in spite of the vibrant color differences.

...plus you know, the shots that the author takes at the mandrill are also quite amusing.

Monkeys aren't donkeys

But, its a moot point, since gorillas aren't monkeys. What am I blabbering about, you may say? Well, Molly sent me a highly amusing link about apes from Gizmodo of all places.

Real Life Donkey Kong Playing With His Nintendo DS
"Donkey Kong plays Donkey Kong while Donkey Kong Jr. watches. OK, maybe he's not playing DK, but it's just as good. The story involves a kid, a couple of real gorillas at the San Francisco Zoo and a happy ending."

Go read the story, watch the movie, and look at the pictures. Pretty great stuff. I just keep finding more and more little things that make me like Gizmodo.

There's more interesting stuff to be said about the baboons. I have a coda for the woeful tale of Trish in the works, but then I went and of all things, injured my wrist, so I'm trying to keep my keyboard strain to a minimum. But if I had nothing but gorillas and video games news to read about, I'd be happy.

How the mighty fall?

In spite of my lack of real updates, I can't help but bring up the recent ScienceBlogs controversy. I would have to say I am a fan of the site; it provide great real estate for some quality bloggers. Granted, I primarily read biology related material, so I can't speak for the other disciplines the site represents, but I have found ScienceBlogs to be a worthy venture.

A couple of days ago, ScienceBlog unveiled a new blog, Food Frontiers, which was written and edited by individuals employed in Pepsico's research and development deaprtment. Chaos ensued! The comments were awash with angry denizens crying out in rage. My favorite might have been this post by one of the sites' other bloggers, condemning the action.

I personally don't like this move, not because of the bad science that might be present in Pepsico's new blog, but because the move will forevermore mar the reputation of ScienceBlogs. That's a shame because there's no where else like it on the net at this point. But I'm not too concerned overall because someone could always make a clone of ScienceBlogs to great effect.

As of writing this, I have returned to the blog, and found it removed. I agree that there should be a discussion between business and the science community, and I hope this won't significantly tarnish ScienceBlogs' reputation.

What I'm most interested in is how much of a silent majority follows ScienceBlogs. The comments on that first post made by Pepsi overwhelmingly indicates that ScienceBlogs readers will not stand for this. It seems I won't have my chance to see this happen, since Food Frontiers is no more. I also highly doubt that many people will stay away now that their demands were met so quickly and completely. Sigh, its no fun when people cave to drama.

Substantial (aka, monkeyish) updates soon, I hope. The real-life Troop Mind Journal is missing, cutting off many sources of content, but I think I know its whereabouts. Additionally, publication takes a lot of the writing spirit out of a person. Okay fine, less excuses, more monkeys.


EDIT: This post from a different ScienceBlogger not only addresses many of the questions I've had on the situation, but comprehensively describes the long lead-ins and direct aftermath to the Pepsi incident. Plus, it is essentially a brief history of ScienceBlogs, which I previously knew next to nothing about.

Another side of the chimp war

Christopher Ryan, an evolutionary psychologist, writes a blog for Psychology Today which I tend to enjoy. However, I found a new post today addressing the breaking news I discussed yesterday. After reading his take,  which emphasized how these findings do not excuse human warfare, and the media runs away with this kind of shit, a few thoughts notes arose in my mind.

I do agree that findings such as these should not be used as explanations for all violent human behavior, much less excuses for such actions. Calling what these male chimps are doing "warfare," may not be accurate; unfortunately I do not know of a better word we could use. Battles, perhaps? That too is misleading, as these conflicts are prolonged struggles, not single confrontations. They are wars in the "tribal war" sense of contemporary hunter-gatherer's unsurprisingly. Those are small scale conflicts, but they are certainly described as wars. The total war of technologically advanced nations, the type of war which now dominated the connotation of the word, is unlike the basic conflicts of the chimpanzees. In fact, there's quite a bit of ethological evidence in humans to say that can people can only be made to participate in total war through cunning and unnatural means.

Additionally, over the course of reading all these reports, rebuttals, and replies, it occurred to me that I may be missing some perspective, since I don't see as much of the mainstream media take (on these particular issues). I read the papers, abstracts, listen to academic speakers on the issues, and if I have a choice between reading the NYTimes article on a story and the equivalent ScienceDaily article, I'll choose the ScienceDaily option. I hear media-focused academics (such as Ryan) decry the relevance of chimpanzee behavior and expound on the wonders of Bonobo behavior. As I also learned today from Vanessa Woods, more than 40 books on chimps have been published in the past ten years, but only one about Bonobos: her book. This explains a great deal; while I knew Bonobos were certainly less known, such extreme lack of awareness by the general public was unexpected. Personally, I ought to work out ways to become more tuned in with what broader audiences know and perceive.

The Cost

I had planned to tell a monkey story today, but I'm having a devil of a time finding an audio clip of a female baboon copulating. Without that, the post is a little difficult to digest. We'll push back to Friday, and hope I can come up with something by then.

In lieu of that tale, I decided to offer my thoughts on an interesting post I came across the other day, entitled Ten Reasons Why Grad Students Should Blog.

"As I thought longer about the vacant state of grad student blogging I wondered if it could be explained as a “they don’t know what they don’t know” situation. Perhaps by standing from the outside looking in, my fellow grad students simply do not know all of the benefits that can come from participating in an online discourse."

I believe that the author is correct in almost all respects, but I feel that the post glazes over and omits several important issues.

I blogged during graduate school, but without commitment, and not about anything related to the work I was doing in grad school. This was largely because I didn't possess the combined time and drive. It is misleading to make a sizable list about why you should blog, without giving any mention of the things you shouldn't blog about.

Prime example: you shouldn't blog about the results of anyone's ongoing research because getting scooped sucks, and opening up a colleague to be scooped can be just as bad. Unless there's some form of misconduct involved, you ought not to talk about the details of someone else's research. Even if there is foul play, you should probably be telling someone who is specifically in a position to do something about it, not just shouting it at the whole internet.

Otherwise, sure, blogging is great. You can write critically about the published research of others, perhaps draw your own conclusions, forge connections with those in your field, and improved your writing. Getting an audience does take concerted effort; another optimistic omission of the original post.

"The things I write about . . . are exactly the same kinds of things I say in seminar and write for term papers."

Ultimately, the author is right on with that statement. If you're confident of your ability to maintain that kind of control over your writing, then blog away. Nevertheless, keeping your boundaries clear is not always an easy task, and many of the pitfalls illustrated in my previous post hold true for this case. You ought to keep a constant eye on yourself because the cost of error can be staggeringly high. In the world of research, its never just your ass alone on the line.

I realize that the author's purpose was to be positive and encouraging, since he clearly wants more grad students to blog. I too would like to see more intelligent bloggers providing open discussion of complex topics for the entire internet to consume and enjoy, but there are concerns which perspective grad student bloggers should be completely aware of before they jump in. If we're asking intelligent people to blog because they're intelligent, then we also ought to respect them enough to give them both sides of the story.

Awesome Tapes from Africa

This is a sweet find, and I wish I could remember who originally linked me to this.

Awesome Tapes from Africa is a side project of a Brian Shimkovitz, who apparently did extensive work studying contemporary forms of music deep in Africa. There isn't so much South Africa in here because of how comparatively visible the country is, but I'm grateful for that, since at this point I don't need much help discovering local SA music.

The variety you can find is this site is exceptional. The site showcases pretty much everything under the sun that sits between the lowest-fi traditional recordings and modern electronica hip-hop. So basically its kind of like the awesome radio show, Afro-pop worldwide (which I highly recommend the podcast for), minus the worldwide part. Plus, Shimkovitz makes the entire tape available... Though it is a little funky how all of the music comes from cassettes still. I suppose they are much more durable in the cases than CD's are.

I almost wish I had discovered the site earlier in my stay, except that oh wait, my internet would never have allowed me to take advantage of the audio.

South Africa's Finest News Source

Buzz unwittingly did me a solid yesterday by sending me a link to this video from The Onion. I haven't made a humor entry in a little while, and I'm hosed out of my mind, plus the internet is still wonky. My theory is that everyone is in the same boat where we run out of internet at the end of the month, and are conserving for the necessities, and then when the new month hits and your limits are reset, people go ballistic and max out the tired old tubes we have to make due with.

Anyhow, here you are:

Scientists Successfully Teach Gorilla It Will Die Someday

Real posts again soon I totally swear. My main two secondary tasks are coming back under control, so I should have more time for awesome biz like this thing.

More on the Internet

Following MWEB's announcement of their uncapped internet options, a bunch of other South African internet service providers jumped on the bandwagon. Famed Cape Town blogger Chris M summed up the latest deals pretty well at his own place.

Worth noting is that Telkom, the largest broadband provider in the country, has yet to fall into line.

Can anyone say government backed monopoly?