K-Squared Ramblings

Man-Eating Birds, Algae-Powered Cars, and Googly Androids

• Fossils linked to Maori legend of man-eating bird. # The giant Haast’s Eagle, which died out at least 500 years ago, was originally thought to have been a scavenger, but new analysis of fossils indicates that it was a lion-level predator…making it the probable basis for the Maori Te Hokioi legend.
• Top Cyber Security Risks 2009. # Operating systems are becoming less and less of a problem, as attackers focus on client applications like Adobe Reader, QuickTime, and so forth.
• Odd headline combo: “The algae-fueled Prius hits the road” and “Flesh-eating bacteria hit the beach.” (ZDNet newsletter) #
• I like the sound of “Googly Android devices” #
• Not sure what this song is, but what I can hear of it sounds like the chorus from Gethsemane – over and over and over. #
• WTF? Allergy recall of “Fannie May Milk Chocolate & Almonds” due to undeclared almonds. How is that undeclared? #

Swoop Warning

Well, that’s encouraging. I mean, nothing makes lunchtime better than worrying you might be about to star in a Hitchcock remake.

Nene Xing

The Nene (roughly nay-nay), a.k.a. the Hawaiian Goose, is Hawaii’s state bird. It’s also endangered. There’s supposed to be a (comparatively) large population in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, but we didn’t see a single one all week. All we saw were a zillion of these signs warning us to avoid hitting them. Maybe it was the wrong time of year, the wrong time of day, or they’re all hiding away from the road.

They warn you not to feed the Nenes either. The concern is that it will encourage them to hang out near roads where they’re more likely to be killed. This reminds me of another bird we did see a lot of. Whatever it was, they were either very stupid or very confident in drivers’ abilities to avoid them, because they would just amble across the road, pausing occasionally, making no effort to dodge the cars zooming at them at 35, 45, or 55 MPH. It was several days before we saw one actually bother to fly a few feet!