Here it is:
One thing I’m noticing about this youtube business: I’m getting good enough to notice how bad I am at it. This one was a struggle because on my first test, I noticed this really annoying low level hiss in the audio — it was a faint noise from my laptop. I ended up juggling gear all over the place to get rid of it, rearranged bits of my office, and got so focused on improving the audio that I didn’t bother with video.
Oh, well. Some year I might know what I’m doing.
PZ’s argument on the ever present hierarchy goes to the dogs (intelligent social mammals) and leaves the lobsters behind. Thank goodness. The relations seem more complex and cooperative as you argue. We have some stake as dogs are natural companions of humans, the ones who started eating our trash and domesticated themselves. Is that why neighborhood dogs love ripping up garbage bags? Actually posture and vocal inflection could help a bit when staring down an aggressive dog. Several times I did a Cesar Millan gesturing when a pit bull bum rushed at me while walking my rat terrier. Timid retreat could have ended differently. Anecdotal so I dunno.
The sneaker male cuckolding the cuttlefish consort was a brilliant flip on the regressive MRAs. So deeply coded PZ. So diabolical. Tsk tsk!
Is the dung beetle horn a metaphor for a Humvee or Porsche? I see larva of something perhaps related in my yard on occasion. Not an entomologist. First time I was all: “What the hell is that?”
So the dynamics breaks down to rock-paper-scissors. Whither Rule 1?
I considered mentioning Cesar Millan — as an example of someone who is totally wrong about animal behavior. He’s been producing a lot of damaged dogs with his horrendous social dominance schtick.
Learning to do video presentations is a learning curve. But you have the most important thing covered: content.
Love the Jane Goodall quote about Trump and chimp behavioural politics but I refer the analogy a mate of mine used when we discussing the antics of a particularly dis functional committee. “Mate its all baboon politics, the baboon with the biggest dick wins.” Just imagine Trump and all his congressmen and senators waving their dicks in each others faces. You get the idea.
I think his focus was so- called red zone dogs. But even his reasonable advice about exercise to burn energy in dog and owner got twisted into running dogs on treadmills. Not a good idea. But long walks yes. Another tip was letting the working breeds such as herders do stuff meaningful in context of that mode. Do herders tend to be calf snippers who try to keep human groups in line? But even that seems so much Freudian catharsis. Or dammed up hydraulic theory.
Oh, but remember that the lovely dudes got both ends of that conversation secured: They’re simultaneously the big alphas who get all the girls as a reward and also at the same time the poor downtrodden men who are unjustly kept from gettin g their dicks wet be those damn women exercising choice in mate selection.
To remove background noise/buzz from your audio is pretty simple in Audacity (free program), just record a bit of empty air and then use the “remove noise” function with that part as the model. Syncing to video could be a bit tricky afterwards, but I’d definitely recommend Audacity for simple clean-up of audio-only content. Audacity is your bare-bones-but-has-all-basic-functionality audio editing software.
hemidactylus @#5
There is no such thing a a ‘red zone’ dog, Milan does not know what he is talking about, but he does know how to put on a good show. Unfortunately that includes things like giving a reactive dog a little kick to be sure it will give a nice dramatic reaction for the cameras. He has done a huge amount of damage in spreading the discredited dominance theory.
Sorry if this is OT PZ but I’ve seen the damage Milan’s programmes end up causing dogs and it gets me more than a little angry. My boy German Shepherd was taught not to growl by his previous owners so he had to take expressing his discomfort to the next level, air snapping, at which point they got rid of him as ‘dangerous’. He was lucky to find a home that could safely handle this behaviour until we could retrain him, too many similar dogs are killed for being aggressive. Our dog is now safe around anyone who follows the rules, don’t touch him without his permission and don’t wave your hands around near him. Best of all he has learnt to growl again so if you are transgressing you get a warning. He is absolutely fine with us, we can do anything to him, even trim the dreads that develop on his penile sheath (he’s long haired and it’s impossible to stop the dreads developing) all done with positive training.
self important alphas need to watch out for us wily betas. The dung beetle’s horn seems particularly ironic.