a-dinosaur-a-day:

awesomemodon:

squigglesquo:

a-dinosaur-a-day:

squigglesquo:

mcrae-guy-the-science-guy:

squigglesquo:

paleofeathers:

saurian-game:

Fresh animations for our newly released Tyrannosaurus.  We are all extremely proud of this design and are pleased to show you guys the fruits of our labor.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!

yeah not sorry, he looks dumb as shit.  nuke the dumb feathers and weird beak head.

1) that “weird beak head” are actually lips like on a modern day monitor lizard
2)feathers are not dumb, they are used to help cool,insulate,and camouflage the tyrannosaurus.

I’m gunna just call you retarded.  T-rex never had feathers and the weird beak head is not even remotely similar to the slender and tight cornered maw of a monitor lizard

I really wish I could edit posts, because I then could cross out the r word on your post, which is highly offensive and you shouldn’t use that word, but here goes. 

A) This is an accurate T. rex in every respect, and I mean though the feathers are speculative, this is a very likely configuration for them 

B) The lips do look like a monitor lizard. I honestly don’t know what monitor lizards you’ve seen in life. 

C) Are you aware that Tyrannosaurs are very closely related to birds, and they were probably very similar to birds, much more so than monitor lizards? 

D) You do know that dinosaurs were living animals and that them being “cool” or your pre-formed idea of them is not accurate and they have no obligation to be the scaly almost-godzilla monsters that you want them to be?

E) If you want games and things with tyrannosaurs like you want them to be (re: not real animals,) there are plenty of them. Hundred even. This is accurate, and yet, not the majority of representations. If anyone has a right to be mad, it is us. 

Sincerely,

Someone who knows much, MUCH more than you about this subject, and is much, MUCH more qualified than you to talk about it. 

oh yes, I am sure you are totes magotes a paleontologist with a masters degree in biology. sorry, I forgot we’re dealing with the INTERNET here for a second, where everyone thinks they’re qualified to talk fake ass shit and claim to be right!

No evidence of #1 to support your silly claim

and have you even studied reptiles?

You know when you make half-assed claims about animals you clearly know nothing about you just look like a goddamn idiot right?

This friends, is a monitor.  Note the distinct lack of dumbfuckingRETARDbeak.  Note the LACK OF LIPS.  You wanna do an animal justice? Then do it RIGHT.

Yooooo. You look pretty ignorant when you keep going WHY DOES THE T-REX LOOK LIKE IT HAS A BEAK WHEN MODERN REPTILES LOOK DIFFERENT?

T-rexes are much more closely related to modern birds than reptiles. Other posters have covered the studies on this so, I won’t. I’ll link them though, so you won’t cherry pick and be like WHERE IS UR PROOF.

Anyway.

The reason a t-rex’s nose look’s kinda beaky is because it is literally what beaks evolved from. I even went ahead and linked an NPR article on the subject there so if you don’t want to wade through a mega dry jargon laden academic paper you can just read that. Or if you don’t have a university to give you access to academic journals without paying a ton of money. And if you DO want to read the academic version there is a link to it in the NPR article. See? That bit at the bottom linking to Evolution?

(I also want to address how screwed up the concept of an ‘expert’ you’re presenting is. Hi. I am finishing my master’s degree. On the last leg of my thesis. Not in paleontology, but in sociology. Which means that in your mind even though I’m apparently not qualified to talk about dinosaurs I am qualified to talk about the social construction of an ‘expert’.

I’m going to avoid listing off books about academia en masse here because I deeply suspect you’re not going to read them. However I am going to mention one particular sociological theorist: Pierre Bourdieu. If you want to read an awesome takedown of the practice of academic gatekeeping of knowledge, the place of the so-called ‘expert’ in society, and the multitude of flaws in academia in terms of perpetuating societal inequalities then he is the dude to read. (Especially Distinction. Which people should be reading anyway like seriously go read Distinction it’ll change your life, man.)

ANYWAY. All of this to say that the idea of the expert in society is a joke, especially with the presence of the Internet. Like. Hi. I am one of the foremost experts of the sociology of play. Like probably top 100 people in the world who know about this subject. How… how did I achieve this state of expertness? I’ve read Callois and Huizinga – who have written basically the two books on play as theoretical concept in sociology. I’ve done a couple of lit reviews on the subject. I’ve read some modern works including Gary Alan Fine’s study on tabletop RPGs (another book everyone should read!) and Patricia Masters’ study on mummers in Philadelphia.

And I’ve done my own research. However clumsy and halting. See that aforementioned thesis?

I want to address here is that the main reason I’m an ‘expert is because very, very, few people study play in a sociological context. That is literally how you become an expert. You read a lot on a subject until you start running out of stuff to read… and then wow. You are probably educated on a subject as well as you would be if you got a bachelor’s degree. Probably a little bit better! If you do your own research – even if it is work done in the realm of theory – then, congrats, you’re as well educated as a master’s student. If you’ve done enough research to write a book on the subject that significantly would add to the state of knowledge in your field? Wow. You are basically as educated as a freaking PhD.

Academia does have a place in all of this in terms of, a) providing ethical review boards to make sure research does not occur in less-than-great circumstances, b) legitimizing research via the peer review system and c) providing students with connections and mentors. This doesn’t mean you CAN’T gain the same level of education outside of academia so plz shut up about how a-dinosaur-a-day can’t possibly be educated about basic paleontology if they haven’t got a university degree to wave in your face.)

Thank you so much. These are all valid points. 

In addition, I do have a university degree in biology, and I was so smart and accomplished that I was able to skip the Master’s step and go straight into a PhD program, where I currently am, in biology. So there’s that.