Fursday - Reading List
fandom, or of relevance due to the involvement of animals or
anthropomorphic characters.
Zebra stripes may ward off flies
Akshat Rathi reports:
A handful of ideas regarding zebras’ stripes have found some support among biologists. One proposed that the dark and light bands change how air flows around a zebra’s body and helps in heat management, which could go a long way in the hot tropical areas that zebras live in.
Another proposed the stripes were used by zebras as a way of social interaction. They may use them to identify other zebras and for bonding as a group in the wild.
A third proposal suggested zebras used the stripes as camouflage. While stripes are clearly visible in the day, there some thought that it helped at dawn, dusk, and in the night.
All these ideas were shot down when tested rigorously. Two others, however, remained intriguing.
Japan abide international ruling to stop whale hunting
In a statement, the court said that although Japan's actions could be described as scientific research, "the evidence does not establish that the program's design and implementation are reasonable in relation to achieving its stated objectives." It went on to conclude that the country's activities do not appear to be "for the purposes" of scientific research but something else. The annual hunts under the JARPA II program are widely seen to be intended for whale meat, which is sold to restaurants in accordance with the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) literature.
There was only so long Japan could keep up this charade. Credit to them abiding by the ruling and knowing when to quit when you are caught out.
Here is a good example of why Japan’s whaling is absurd: the government has to subsidise the industry because consumption of whale meat is so low it is an unprofitable venture.
Cheese Weasel Day
I cannot believe this is a thing...
According to TechCrunch:
While the origins are murky, the holiday seems to have started around 1992 when two techies spotted a weasel carrying a wrapped Kraft Single. This, they assumed, must be the Cheese Weasel, and therefore, that it must be Cheese Weasel Day. After all, what else would a weasel be doing with cheese if he weren’t headed to your local data center to leave the sweet, yellow goodness on your favorite techie’s desk?
Profile of Tove Jansson, author of the Moomins
I remember enjoying the animated series and passionately reading one particular story about the adventures of Moominpappa. Never before have I known much about the author behind these wonderful characters, so this article is a great introduction.
The final passage of Mark Bosworth’s piece is an observation by the British film director Frank Boyce which neatly sums up the spirit of the Moomins:
"They are just fantastically enriching books. One of the things I really took from them was the importance of small pleasures, that life is really worth living if we're just nice to each other and make really good coffee, and the pancakes are just right - then nothing else really matters in any substantial way.
These days I know Moomins are in fact Finnish troll creatures with large snouts, but I will always think of them as adorable hippos.
Bear Simulator
The title gives you all you need to know as it's pretty much a bear simulator. You play in FPB (First Person Bear) and do bear things which include exploring, eating fish and plants, striking down anything that dare stand before your might, increasing your stats, sleeping and discovering mysteries of your forest home.
Difficult to tell if this is an oncoming trend of slapstick animal simulators or just coincidence.
I am left wondering what fish simulator is like. Dodging fishermen’s hooks, jumping up stream, avoiding bigger fish…
How the myths of a blue tiger might have occurred
The possible origins in the maltese tiger may have lied in a combination of two genes that would have caused a rare fur pigmentation. It raises the question of how many mythical creatures may have started from the sighting of a unique mutation.
As Esther Inglis-Arkell writes:
Tigers are relatively variable in their colors. There are pure white tigers with barely distinguishable stripes, white tigers with black stripes, and golden tigers that have slightly deeper gold stripes on a tawny background. Reports of black tigers or gray tigers still do turn up. Despite the stories told by hunters and the brief glimpses of hikers or farmers, it's doubtful that this kind of cat exists.
Dissecting frogs could be treason?
Pet lion
I admire the family for how calm and trusting they are around the lion. I know I would not feel comfortable.
Horseshoe crab are important medical blood donors
Alexis C. Madrigal reveals the secret behind LAL, a test for seeing whether contamination has occurred. LAL is in fact the blood of the horseshoe crab which chemically reacts to bacteria.
“This gel immobilized the bacteria but did not kill them,” Bang wrote in the 1956 paper announcing the substance. “The gel or clot was stable and tough and remained so for several weeks at room temperature.”
If there is no bacterial contamination, then the coagulation does not occur, and the solution can be considered free of bacteria. It's a simple, nearly instantaneous test that goes by the name of the LAL, or Limulus amebocyte lysate, test (after the species name of the crab, Limulus polyphemus).
The article provides a fascinating behind the scenes look into how the miracle blood is harvested. What is interesting is these crabs are only bleed for up to 30% of their blood before being released back into the wild, far away from where they had been captured. You might have thought horseshoe crabs were simply rounded up and massacre when in fact medical companies keep morality rates under 30%. In addition:
The LAL test replaced the rather horrifying prospect of possibly contaminated substances being tested on "large colonies of rabbits." Pharma companies didn't like the rabbit process, either, because it was slow and expensive.
Learn to code your own Flappy Bird
I remember a decade ago programming magazines would have tutorials on how to make your own Tetris or Space Invaders game in Flash. Young aspiring programmers have never had it this easy learning the core concepts of coding.
Found via The Verge
Connie Sun’s comics explore projections we place on animals
There are different ways to think about animals. One way is to imagine them totally separate, not attaching to us, ever. "They are not brethren," wrote the great naturalist Henry Beston, "they are not underlings. They are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time." Animals and people, Beston thought, live in their own worlds while sharing the same streets, meadows, skies, homes. We mingle, but the gap between us is not crossable.
Or, if you like, you can think of animals as pretend friends. You can tiptoe closer in, knowing full well they are not us, but still talk to them, share with them, give them a hug because (whatever is really going on) it feels good.
We have a long fascination and relationship with animals. We constantly project ourselves onto animals, all the while knowing deep down they not us. The article also features some thoughtful inner identity and coming of age comics by Connie Sun.
What happened to the last of 3 animals
Despite human activity still driving animals to extinction, it feels like our ancestors were more callous in their attitudes towards conservation. Take for example the story of the last thylacine; commonly known as the Tasmanian tigers for its distinctive stripes running across its lower spine and for its last remaining habitat being the island of Tasmania. Humanity is not solely to blame for their demise; the population was already on the wane by the time the British settled on the Australian continent, but they contributed their part through government sponsored culling.
What is thought to be the last thylacine was captured in 1933. Robert Krulwich writes:
Benjamin (that's what "he" was called; his sex is still being debated) spent his final days in the Hobart zoo in a wire-topped cage, exposed to the weather, protected by a solitary tree that was not yet in leaf. It was early spring in Australia, and the weather very changeable, writes MacKinnon: "[N]ighttime temperatures dropped below freezing and soared as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit by day. One witness reported hearing the [tiger's] ululating cry of distress. It died in the night on Sept. 7, 1936."
And the body? This time, this Last One was not preserved. Benjamin's corpse, says MacKinnon, "was apparently thrown away."
An undignified end.
British wildlife conservation lacking ambition
In the first third of George Monbiot's article, he writes about the achievements various European conservation bodies have had reviving the population of native species like wolves and lynxes.
However for Britain:
Bison in Britain died out during the peak of glaciation, between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago. They might have been prevented from returning at the end of the ice age (when this landmass was still attached to the continent) by human hunting pressure. Wolverine survived here until about 8,000 years ago. Elk were exterminated later: the last remains found in Britain are 3,900 years old.
Bears died out about 2,000 years ago. The most recent lynx bones date from the sixth century AD, but cultural records might extend to the ninth century, when a stone cross on the isle of Eigg that carries what appears to be a carving of a lynx was erected. The last clear record of the wolf in Britain is an animal killed in Sutherland in 1621. Beavers might have persisted into the mid-18th century.
I never realised Britain was home to lynxes and beavers.
Cat shaped candle with a morbid secret
The poetic rise and fall of Flappy Bird
It would of been difficult to have not heard about Flappy Bird – the smartphone game for iPhone and Android – as it flew to the top of the charts, catching the attention of the tech and video game press. When the creator decided to pull down the game, it was virtually impossible to avoid as the media speculated what brought down the game that was at one point earning the creator $50,000 a day in advertisement revenue.
As an optimise I am going to believe vietnamese game developer Dong Nguyen was sincere when he claimed he did not utilise artificially tactics to push Flappy Bird up the charts and that he was burnt out from the attention as well as disheartened by the amount of time people played the game.
Flappy Bird will live on as a curious tale in the history of mobile video gaming and joins an esteemed elite of mobile games featuring seemingly legless round birds including Angry Birds and Tiny Wings.
Crowdsourcing the history of furry conventions
Fred Patten:
Many Furry conventions have been very helpful in answering questions, but some profiles are full of question marks. None have refused to participate, but some have ignored three or four e-mails. (With some, I am not sure I even have their correct address. Does anyone have an address for the discontinued FranFurences in France?). Others have replied that they are very busy, but that they will answer soon. After more than six months, I am not holding my breath.
It is understandable that the business of life and its hectic chaos can prevent organisers from getting round to replying to what would be considered low-priority requests in the grand scheme of the day, but as a firm believer in history and keeping records of our subculture for posterity I hope people in the know can help out in giving him the facts. Whether its from remembering a source of information that was posted on an FA journal to being a friend of an organiser, every little piece of information helps builds a grander picture of the fandom.
Growth spike for FurAffinity alternatives
A few weeks ago two tweets caught my attention.
A big welcome from us to the many, many talented furs who joined SoFurry recently! You are awesome, and we'll keep working hard for you!
— SoFurry (@sofurrynews) January 22, 2014Welcome, New Users! - Hello, everyone! First we’d like to express our gratitude for the recent spike in... http://t.co/KAwSQzVcUG
— Weasyl (@weasyl) January 23, 2014Coincidental timing that both furry media galleries should post tweets about a spike in membership registration. I reached out to GreenReaper – administrator of Inkbunny – to see if the same was happening to his site and was informed that they were experiencing a spike in activity whilst registrations were increasing at a normal rate.[1]
The joy of furs being willing to branch out into trying other furry art galleries is subdued by the speculated motivation relating to allegations mentioned in the linked Flayrah article. It would be nice to think people are trying the alternatives based on merit and having grown tired of FurAffinity, but the reality might be that some are moving just to make a point of principle (even if it might be on unsubstantiated grounds).
Regardless, FurAffinity is still going to be an influential force and as observed by Sonious when you look at his analysis of Alexia statistics:
While we can see that while Weasyl had gained traffic, FA has not suffered any noticeable loss. Essentially artists have their feet wading in more pools now rather than a select few. Whether this means furry artists are diversifying their portfolios in a simple wariness of Fur Affinity's decisions or is an actual beginning of a shift is yet to be seen. However, at this point it would be foolish of those in charge of the largest furry website to not take notice and weigh carefully on future decisions, lest giving rivals more ground.
[1] He attributed this to InkBunny being one of the oldest of the new wave art galleries (Inkbunny went live in 12th June 2010, whilst SoFurry 1.0 went live 26th December 2009, it was not until 23rd January 2012 that version 2.0 was launched) and so most people who could of registered accounts have done so whether as backup or curiosity.
Optimising a furry art gallery database
When I learnt about designing relational databases at university it was actually pretty simple on paper when you worked through the step-by-step methodology for determining the relationship status between tables and where the redundancies were. However in real world usage it is actually a headache for the inexperienced, because you have to be aware of how tables structure can lead to resource intensive queries, or discovering you need to change design resulting in a domino of changes you must roll out.
So I found GreenReaper’s explanation for changes being made to Inkbunny’s database an insightful read into the challenges an art gallery faces. It is easy for a bright eyed developer to want to change the fandom by making the FurAffinity-killer but articles like these reveal the kind of issues you must be wary of.
GreenReaper’s piece is technical but also accessible to anyone with some beginner knowledge of databases, a thorough recommendation for anyone who works in coding development. Here is a favourite passage:
The primary key is often set to be a steadily-increasing number which otherwise has no meaning. This helps avoid issues with relations to other tables. (Usernames are unique, and could be used as a key, but they can also change; we don't want to have to update every table relating to a user when they do.)
Numbers are also small. Think about how fast unread submissions can rack up if you're watching a lot of users. We have members with tens of thousands of them. (This brought down FA in December.)
What we've used to date is an eight-byte integer (whole number) key. Eight bytes doesn't sound like much, but it can store 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 different positive values. It's good to be optimistic, but the reality is that Inkbunny will never have 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 users, past or present.
It's a fair bet that we'll also never have 2,147,483,647 users, the maximum for a four-byte signed integer. We can therefore use a four-byte key, saving space in the user table and every table which relates to it. This same reduction can be applied to submissions (even deviantART has only used 420,000,000 submission IDs), private messages, comments, keywords, etc.
ArtCorgi the art commissioning marketplace
Anthony Ha writing about ArtCorgi for TechCrunch:
You can read Malcolm’s full account of the proposal here, but the gist of it is that he commissioned 21 pieces from 18 artists via online art community deviantART, and then posted them on Reddit. Maybe not the way you would propose, but still, pretty darn amazing. (And most importantly, she said yes.)
Apparently Malcolm (who’s also a grad student at the Stanford Business School) and Simone (formerly director of marketing at HubPages.com) were working on another startup called Gigaverse at the time, but they found that people seemed much more interested in talking about the proposal story and the commissioned art. Malcolm said that as he thought about it, he realized “just how ridiculous” the process was. In fact, he said that he had to contact more than 300 artists to get the final 21 pieces, because so many of those artists were no longer active or said they were too busy.
Sounds like a familiar problem?
Read on about how ArtCorgi aims to solve various problems when it comes to commissioning art, they have solid ideas. Now of course this is aimed more at the general DeviantArt illustration crowd, but there is no reason why furry artists (the non-pornographic ones to be precise) cannot benefit from the system (not to forget the commissioners themselves). Or at the very least this should be inspiration for anyone who wants to make a furry solution.
12 things you forgot about ThunderCats
I would not say they were all insane as the article title claims, but the nudity in the first episode is both startling and yet for some reason it should not feel surprising. I would say that it is typical of the time, yet for those who have watched Digimon Series 3 you will find it kinda still happens today.