tired: in an Amazon world, independent retail is doomed
wired: independent retail was doomed before Amazon with the rise of mall outlet chains and “big box” stores, both Wal-Mart and “category killers” with nationally optimized supply chains; Amazon’s original debut as a bookseller was in a sector that Barnes & Noble and Borders had already transformed
galaxy brain: independent retail was already under threat from national operations like F.W. Woolworth, A&P, and Sears Roebuck at the turn of the century and in response the politically influential class of local businessmen erected an extensive regulatory apparatus – restrictions on the timing, amount, and advertising of sales and discounts; a heavily regulated shipping sector; vigorous antitrust to prevent suppliers from decisively dominating any sector; requirements for branch offices as a condition of doing business in the state; protections for an intermediary layer of wholesalers and distributors between producers and retailers; all of which mitigated the advantages of size and committed large businesses to supporting a class of local business-types throughout the areas they served rather than concentrating wealth and power in a headquarters city. Much of the heralded “deregulation” and “consumer movement” of the 1970s-80s consisted of dismantling this apparatus in the name of efficiency, lowered consumer prices being one way to increase purchasing power against a backdrop of stagflation.
Look I know this is a shit post fuelled by staying up too late on my phone and an extended Gd-awful cold from hell but there are absolutely Tons of Large Weird Birds in the Cenozoic and it’s 100% possible to make an awesomebro-style documentary just about dead birds and people who have limited Cenozoic Bird coverage to just Gastornis and Terror Birds are
Cowards
Alright it’s a new day and I’m still ridiculously ill so I’m back with some great candidates for your Awesomebroy Documentaray on Cenozoic Birds and how Freaking Weird They Are
These guys were large, flightless predatory birds with small wings that lived from the end of the Paleocene to the beginning of the Pleistocene in South America (and later on in North America). You could literally pick any time to have these guys running around and wreaking havoc. You can EVEN HAVE THEM FEEDING ON OTHER BIRDS like this Strong!Rhea below
They are actually closely related to Terror Birds but they lived in North America from the Eocene to the Miocene, and they were also large, long-legged predators of other food. The main difference is basically range and the fact that they had longer wings – most of them were still flightless but some of them could still fly which is terrifying
While I’ve got you here with Cariamiformes aka Seriemas and their weird-ass dead relatives we also have things like Strigogyps and Idiornis which were essentially like modern seriemas but smaller and all over the place during the Paleogene, and also mother-fucking qianshanornis that had a fucking SICKLE CLAW LIKE A DROMAOESAURID RAPTOR this was basically a PALEOCENE DROMAEOSAUR except a Neornithine bird
this illustration by Apokryltaros doesn’t do it justice but I work with what I’ve got
If Seriemas and their compendium of terrifying dead cousins don’t tickle your fancy just fucking wait I’ve got more
The Gruiformes aka Crakes Cranes and Rails and shit were weirdly morphologically diverse back in the day and they did more than Wade in the Water
Eogrus and its relatives were essentially Crane Ostriches they also only had two toes and were probably built mainly for running they lived from the Eocene to the Pliocene in Eurasia and all I have to work with again is bad wikipedia illustrations but here it is the freaking weirdo
By Tim Morris
But wait! There’s also the Adzebill!!!!!
By Nobu Tamura
These were ALSO large flightless relatives of modern cranes and they were JUST in New Zealand from the Miocene to RECENT TIMES aka the Holocene and they had long pointy beaks so they could hunt for small animals like lizards and tuatara and OTHER BIRDS in their habitat and they WEREN’T the only large birds in New Zealand because New Zealand is essentially DINOSAUR LAND 2: THE FEATHERING cause it was isolated from mammals apart from bats until humans showed up and ruined everything so we have
By Jack Wood
Haast’s Eagle, one of th elargest known flying birds that hunted
Freaking Moa, the large flightless ratites that basically were the Charismatic Megafaunal Herbivores of New Zealand and they lost their wings and looked so trippy but also so cool and they were HUNTED ON BY GIANT EAGLES
By John Megahan
I just. Have some. Some important. Questions. WHY THE FUCK HAVE I NEVER SEEN THIS MAGICAL LAND IN A MAJOR DOCUMENTARY. There were also a bunch of really cool other birds in New Zealand that are pretty unique to New Zealand (and some of them are still around today like New Zealand Wrens and The Kakapo!) but I’m trying to stick to charismatic megafauna type shit for this list the whole point is that you can make an AWESOMEBROY documentary JUST ABOUT CENOZOIC BIRDS very easily anyway
Speaking of large flightless ratites we also have the Elephant Bird from Madagascar which I NEVER SEE TALKED ABOUT except for like the context of “largest bird” which for the record it might not be I don’t have a good skeleton of it but there were lots of different kinds of Elephant Birds in Madagascar and they were basically the large herbivores of the area doing their thing and There is ALSO Eremopezus which was a large flightless bird from the end of the Eocene so an EARLY ONE and we have NO IDEA what kind of ratites it was closely related to or even if it IS a ratite and it would have been a ridiculously large bird and STAY TUNED FOR MORE OF THAT MYSTERY
There are also, of course, ratites in the Cenozoic – such as the Emuary, which is literally just an early relative of both Emus and Cassowaries thats a cross between the two, lots of extinct Ostrich and Rhea relatives – like the Strong!Rhea above and of course various ostriches that spread all over the Eastern Hemisphere, and the Lithornithids!
LITHORNITHIDS 👏DESERVE 👏MORE 👏PRESS 👏 THEY 👏WERE 👏PERCHING 👏RATITE-COUSINS 👏THAT FLEW AND SORED 👏ALL OVER THE EARLY PALEOGENE 👏👏👏👏👏👏I’M VERY BITTER
SPEAKING of Bitterns and their relatives (ha ha I’m hilarious) we DO HAVE dead shoebill relatives from Egypt called GOLIATHIA and there are also GIANT. IBISES. GIANT IBISES. FLIGHTLESS, GIANT IBISES. Called the Jamaican Ibis.
And I hear you, by this point you might be saying “but like, the hallmark of any discussion of Cenozoic fauna is talking about the evolution of whales which is a Trip and there isn’t an analogous thing in birds is there” and I hear you. I hear. you. My counterpoint is: the evolution of PENGUINS
By Nobu Tamura
THEY WENT FROM FLIGHTED SMALL BIRDS TO LOON-LIKE-THINGS (note: penguins are NOT CLOSELY RELATED TO LOONS) to WEIRD LARGE BIRDS WITH LONG SHARP BEAKS GOOD FOR STABBING –
WE EVEN KNOW THE COLOR OF SOME OF THEM (by Apokryltaros)
AND. THEY. GOT. FUCKING. H U G E (size comparison by Discott)
They aren’t the only dead birds that got to look like that though. There were other very aquatic birds back in the day – like the relatives of modern Boobies from Japan, the Plotopterids – they lived rom the Eocene to the Miocene, they were huge, and they were the “Northern Hemisphere’s Penguins”
By Nobu Tamura
And of course we can’t forget the Great Auk which is literally named Pinguinus and needs No Introduction
By Mike Pennington
Okay while we’re on the subject of large aquatic birds HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE SWIMMING FLAMINGOS
By Ghedoghedo
THESE GUYS WERE BIG. THESE GUYS WERE LONG. THESE GUYS WERE FREAKY LOOKING. THESE GUYS HAD SHARP STABBY BEAKS. AND THEY LIVED FROM THE OLIGOCENE TO THE PLIOCENE AND ARE A WEALTH OF WEIRD FREAKINESS AND MY ONLY REGRET IS THAT I DON’T HAVE A RECONSTRUCTION FOR YOU.
Oh wait while we’re talking about flamingos have I MENTIONED THE DUCKS THAT EVOLVED TO BE WEIRD FLAMINGO-MIMICS
THIS IS TEVIORNIS (by @thewoodparable) FROM THE CRETACEOUS BUT IN THE PALEOGENE THEY GOT EVEN WEIRDER AND SKINNIER AND FLAMINGO-Y-ER BUT WITH DUCK BILLS INSTEAD OF THE HOOK THINGS OF FLAMINGOS AND THEY MIGHT HAVE LIVED ALL THE WAY UNTIL THE OLIGOCENE –
THIS IS WILARU ITS FROM AUSTRALIA AND IT WAS MORE TERRESTRIAL AND VERY STRONG/ROBUST IT WAS A BIG BOY
Okay, okay. I know what you’re thinking. You heard me mention Ducks and you think I’m holding out on you. Fine. Fine. I have neglected to mention the only reasonably famous Cenozoic Bird.
Yes, there’s Gastornis. And while I probably would say “nope, we don’t need that, it’s been in everything,” I will acknowledge that to my knowledge it has never been represented as it was IN LIFE. We USED to think these weirdos were large predatory birds in their habitats like the Terror Birds would one day be.
TURNS OUT WE WERE WRONG.
Gastornis and its relatives were actually HERBIVORES. Giant, flightless, convergent-on-PARROTS-HERBIVORES. They would USE THEIR GIANT BEAKS TO BREAK OPEN FRUIT. THEY WERE WEIRD CASSOWARY-PARROT-DUCKS and SHOW THEM THEIR PROPER RESPECT.
They also weren’t the only LARGE FLIGHTLESS DUCK THINGS
By Nobu Tamura
DROMORNIS AND ITS RELATIVES may or may not be closely related to Gastornis we don’t actually know and they were Australian and Huge and they lived from the Oligocene to the Pleistocene and they were ALSO herbivores and they ALSO had tiny wings and they were ALSO huge and there were more of them than there were of Gastornis and they ALSO were probably like parrots in cracking open fruit and other things with their huge beaks and even though they were fairly robust they could still run fast using the power of BRUTE STRENGTH
BRUTE STRENGTH RUNNING
Also let us PLEASE not forget the gaggle of Quaternary-period Large Flightless Goose-like Ducks from Hawai’i because these guys were AWESOME, WEIRD and in a lot of ways very cute and worth mentioning. They also had fun names like Small-Billed Moa-Nalo, Ptaiochen –
And Thambetochen –
And my personal favorite, the Turtle-Jawed Moa-Nalo, which not only is adorable, but has an absolutely ridiculous genus name – Chelychelynechen
like
why
All illustrations of these weirdos are by Apokryltaros
And in the realm of waterfowl, ALSO don’t forget that there was an Island off the coast of Italy with TINY ELEPHANTS but more importantly GIANT SWANS OF DOOM THAT WOULDN’T HAVE EATEN THEM BUT WOULD HAVE CHASED THEM AWAY BECAUSE, LIKE ALL SWANS, THEY WERE ASSHOLES
The teratorns were relatives of New World Vultures aka things like Condors; they lived in North and South America from the Oligocene to the Pleistocene (so you can absolutely have a Terror Bird eating the carcass of a Rhea while a Teratorn circles overhead looking for nibbles) and they were huge, soaring animals with impossibly large wingspans and we have tons of fossils of these guys including from the LA BREA TAR PITS so there’s THAT for charismatic localities
By Nobu Tamura; TERATORNS
By the way there are a lot of birds from La Brea not just Teratorns there are tuns of Eagles and Vultures (including Old World Vultures which were in the New World until humans got there basically so that’s an interesting Thought) and Ducks and Sea Birds and Giant Storks –
By Ellen
And pigeons and Caracaras and turkeys and songbirds and woodpeckers and grebes and egrets and cranes and owls –
By Apokryltaros
OH CRAP OWLS
OWLS
O W L S you guys
First off I find it very important to note that we actually have a halfway decent evolutionary sequence for owls
By Ghedoghedo
but BEYOND THAT we have the RIDICULOUS STILT HOWLS that were the largest owls to ever exist and they were probably flightless and they lived in places like Cuba and they had long legs and were very strong and they probably could run around like maniacs and they were basically convergent on seriemas? I’d say?
By Apokryltaros
Like what the fuck. What the. Fuck. Fucccck. Fuck.
While I have you here with birds of prey hav eyou heard of the Flexiraptor?
The Flexiraptor, or Pengana, is basically a cross between a Secretary Bird and a Caracara (though it’s most closely related to thinks like Eagles and Hawks) from Australia in the Miocene (actually, it’s from Riversleigh, which has lots of other really good birds like early modern-ish parrots and passerines and stuff) and it had feet that were as flexible as like, human hands, which let them reach into holes and crevices to grab prey, which is freaking awesome, go Flexiraptor
Also, may I remind you that the earliest parrots were birds of prey
These birds were small but had parrot feet and beaks built for grabbing other animals and CRONCHing them. PARROTS OF PREY.
Finally. The thing you’ve all been waiting for. The birds that are a CRIME that I’ve never seen them in a single documentary thing and as far as I’m aware the only attempt to represent them in media has been in fucking Ark: Survival Evolved.
The Pseudotoothed Birds.
By Didier Descouens
ARGHHHHH WHY HAVE THESE NEVER BEEN SHOWN IN ANYTHING
PSEUDOTOOTHED BIRDS WERE RIDICULOUSLY COMMON BIRDS THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE CENOZOIC
THEY ONLY WENT EXTINCT RECENTLY
THEIR MOUTHS LOOK LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A HORROR FILM
We have NO IDEA what these guys were related to, they were most definitely sea-birds though but they might be closely related to ducks or they might be closely related to modern seabirds we really just don’t know, and they were everywhere – North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, New Zzealand, EVERYWHERE. EVERYWHERE AND EVERYWHEN. they only went extinct 2.5 MILLION YEARS AGO. They also had RIDICULOUSLY LONG WINGS
By Ryan Somma
THEY WERE ALSO SOME OF THE LARGEST FLYING BIRDS WE KNOW OF
FREAKING. HUGE. SOARING. MONSTROSITIES OF TERROR.
By El Fosilmaníaco
Just. Just picture. You’re an early Hominid. On the beaches of Africa. Staring out at the sea. And you see a bird. That looks like a normal seagull or something. Just normal. And then you look closer.
By Jaime A. Headden
AND YOU SEE THE DEMON SHARP PROJECTIONS OF THE BEAK THAT TO YOUR LESS MODERN BRAIN WOULD HAVE LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE TEETH
YOU RUN
YOU FUCKING RUN
For FUCKS sake. WHY. They used the teeth to snag fish but WHY.
And, of course, there were lots of paleo environments with lots of different types of birds showing how they diversified and first evolved and what kinds of birds there are – the Messel Pit, Fur Formation, and Green River Formations all have LOTS of birds and are great windows into the Eocene Radiation of birds.
And of COURSE there are a lot of SMALL BIRDS that are really interesting and show how birds diversified during the Cenozoic and they’re really cool but THE POINT OF THIS POST IS THAT THERE ARE A SHITTON OF
CHARISMATIC AVIAN MEGAFAUNA
and ANYONE WHO LIMITS THEMSELVES TO GASTORNIS AND TERROR BIRDS when talking about birds in the Cenozoic
IS
A
COWARD
thank you for coming to my Ted Talk
If I missed anything let me know because not only do these things not get the coverage they deserve in popular representation they also have fucking terrible online resources and thank g-d Gerald Mayr exists because without him we’d all be lost
But seriously, on the whole? I’m gonna miss this place when it finally enters it’s final FINAL FINAL death throes, because for all of its faults, all of its shitty design, Tumblr was undoubtedly great platform in one respect at least: the micro-blogging format here was ideal for lurkers.
Reblogging coupled with the unique style of tag-comments the fandom developed here suddenly made visible the big chains of lurkers who normally don’t interact with the work or its creator directly, but they pass it along in their own little circles, putting up your content up in their own spaces, adding all these heartwarming tags like “it’s great!!”, “omg i love u” or “i’d read that”s.
I create sometimes, when the mood strikes, but I was always mostly a lurker, actually! Especially back on LJ.
I’m old enough for my ancient, defunct LJ account with less than 10 entries to be still floating out there somewhere, and old enough that migrating to DW is less painful due to nostalgia factor. Yet, it is a nostalgia factor brought on mostly by the fact that for years, LJ was primary place to lurk on!
After clicking through all the “yep I’m old enough to view those entries 🙂 🙂 :)” buttons on the way, of course.
((The image below: old-school “Lurker Day” LJ/DW banner, one of many you can still find out there – this one’s from https://soc-puppet.dreamwidth.org/))
This so hard. It’s the reason Tumblr became my home rather than any other social network.
Because Lurker is my creature-type. I started on Tumblr exclusively reblogging things and adding those little comments about what I liked about them. And I always felt like those comments were inadequate to express how much I got out of the thing, but I figured saying a small amount badly was better than nothing.
And then I gradually gained more confidence in the idea that I could say original things and they’d also be good. At least good to me. Maybe other people too, if they happened upon it, but that wasn’t necessary. It just had to be good to me.
And then, well, I became sinesalvatorem. Like, me. /I/ became this fucking blog. It stopped being a url I registered so Tumblr would let me have a dashboard to lurk a bunch of cool people. I became the blog because I was able to really believe that I could let my Self out here.
Which only happened because I had a place where I could reblog other people’s stuff with mediocre commentary, and that was OK. So it was also OK if my mediocre statements stood on their own. And maybe, eventually, stopped being mediocre – but only to the extent that I stopped caring if they were.
Because what mattered was (-matters -is) they’re /me/
I just finished watching Press Buttons ‘n Talk’s (lets play channel run by @prozdvoices and @armanky) playthroughs of the first two Phoenix Wright games!! I’m glad this was my first real experience with the games and I loved all the inside jokes!
I have no idea what this is from but i instantly love and support him. YOU SPEAK THE TRUTH MY SON
This is Gonzolo from Helix waltz!! He’s the oldest son of noble family Jorcastle, and the only chill one of the bunch (which isn’t really a high bar but still should be said). He’s in love with city guard Alan and will try and throw down with the main character if he thinks she’s trying to court Alan. Otherwise they’re thick as thieves when it comes to Courtly Shenanigans.
so i know what you’re thinking “oh i remember that scene i don’t need to click on the video to recall it”. But you should. Like… if you’re anywhere near your mid-twenties, chances are that you watched shrek (1) when you were a kid and maybe a few times again in your late teens, but your memory absolutely doesn’t do it justice.
The comedic timing through this whole movie is insane. Also, the fact that the animation style is aging literally just adds to the hilarity instead of poorly dating it. The nuance of every gesture is so well done and specific.
I am literally convinced that this movie is a masterpiece and that will be historically relevant maybe 100 years from now as a perfect time capsule of our culture.
This scene in particular illustrates it especially well; particularly for being only like 1 minute long.
Highlights/Breakdown
The timing in the way Robin says savior and the way he says beast.
the character solidifying disregard and disrespect of “Please! Monster!”
Fiona’s sheer brute strength when she pokes him in the shoulder so hard it spins him around–strength that he disregards which is why hes surprised as hell when he gets his ass beat
Just the entire french accent that isn’t even a good french accent at all.
The accordion man in the tree, the prop bushes. that one of the prop bushes falls down to reveal that its a wood cut-out subtly in the background
Shrek and fiona watching with horror as he begins his song. Donkey never cracking his excited smile, fully immersed in the Lore™; which is actually part of a longer running joke through the film which is that occasionally when certain characters do things would be reacted to poorly irl, the surrounding characters react like you would if you saw that irl not like characters in a story. Like instead of getting drawn into the lore of their circumstances they just stand there, staring like “yikesssss”
shrek’s exhaustion and impatience when the song goes into the “saucy little maid” bit.
“what hes basically saying is he likes to get paid.” the chaos of that statement. combined with shrek and fiona having a eye contact conversation above the performance, exchanging “wtf” gestures.
When the song escalates into a dance fight, Shrek’s exhaustion turns into general mounting amusement like “wow is this really turning into a dance fight. wow hes really snapping in unison” which is additionally apart of the above long running joke
Fiona interrupting robin with a kick.
the fuckin sound his head makes when it hits the rock.
The fight after isn’t as dynamic timing wise, just a classic animated fight scene but that song though. *kisses fingers like a chef*
A few reasons it can be fun to pay attention to small details in the FMA manga…
1. There’s a liquor brand, Stray Dog, that recurs throughout the series. You’ll see the logo in Liore…
…in Youswell (multiple times!)…
…in the apartment Falman keeps Barry… held by a man walking past Hawkeye outside her apartment door… it’s even in Mustang’s office (during the side story made for the live action’s release). It’s really everywhere.
Does the label appear in Brotherhood? You bet it does! Here it is in “The Oath in the Tunnel” at Madame Christmas’ bar!
2. You’ll notice posters in the background detailing Yoki’s shenanigans (way before you hear him recount his adventures in the north to Ed and company). Have a visual advertising “Yoki Circus” that you see in Central when Havoc goes to visit Falman and Barry.
3. Arakawa repeatedly draws the same front cover for one edition of the Central Times paper (the issue which details Maria Ross’ “crime”) throughout multiple chapters.
The reason why this is cool is because it shows a photo of a factory on fire. Later, chapters later, when Roy’s in the hospital for Lust’s stab wounds, he mentions this fire to Doctor Knox.
It was this fire that led Mustang to believe he could expect Knox would be the one doing Ross’ autopsy. Because of the newspaper photo, we know when Roy got this information and decided he could use that in the escape plan: when Breda brought the paper with the headline of Ross’ conviction.
4. Speaking of news headings, there’s an important one we see during Ed and Al’s long childhood flashback (back when they’re preparing to do human transmutation). “The Conclusion of a Civil War.”
5. There’s some amusing signage here and there. Looks like Rush Valley has some issues with proper waste disposal.
There’s even a sign that’s a just drawing of a dog one place in Rush Valley. Aptly, there’s a dog near that sign.
6. We see English writing for names including Youswell, Xing, Aerugo, Creta, Drachma, Amestris, Ishval, Maria Ross, Maes Hughes, and Ling Yao in the background, so we know how Arakawa wanted the names spelled.
Not only that, but we can see other details like matching numbers between Ling’s prison bracelet and the tag on his confiscated sword. W1582.
Though… you DO have to lovingly laugh at the letter Hughes gets, sent from a certain “Glacier Joyous Coeaofijea;ogi”……
It’s as amusing as one FMA manga illustration of a newspaper that mentions… Britain.
7. We can read a LOT of the Latin, etc. text in alchemy-related designs. Riza’s tattoo, the different Gates of Truth, Alex’s gauntlets, you name it.
8. We see small background manifestations of Ishvalan cultural elements. Notice the intentional removal of footwear in this panel.
9. More sobering detail here, but… between Kimblee’s hand tattoos and one oft-drawn wooden crate… ever notice the six pointed star that recurs throughout Scar’s brother’s Ishvalan War flashbacks?
10. There’s dates in the Rockbell photo album! A memorable October ’11, of course, in which Ed holds up his new pocket watch…
…but also things like Pinako with her baby, meaning we can pin down when Yuriy Rockbell was born. That baby’s pretty little in May ’73. And does that top picture of May ’72 signify the year Pinako moved to that house in Resembool?
The photo of Pinako as a young woman with Hohenheim was taken in 1866.
11. Characters like Raven sneak in before they’re officially introduced and named. Here he is at the end of Chapter 44.
12. There’s a rich couple that appears multiple times throughout the story in Rush Valley and Central.
13. And there’s Mobuo Mobuta, too. If you haven’t heard of him before, he’s a man with a thin mustache and white suit who recurs throughout the background, in essentially a manga form of Where’s Waldo.
(And yes, he’s in the anime, too, have fun hunting).
Like… there’s some fun stuff in the details, even beyond the glorious artwork.
Plot Designing 