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Dawn of the Paul Riddell

@kyloboomhauer.bsky.social

990 followers 1.1K following 3.4K posts

Former carnivorous plant gallery owner, recovering writer, custodian and chef to Parker the lynx-point Siamese. New project: St. Remedius Medical College. http://www.stremedius.com “…one of Dallas’s best eccentrics.” - Dallas Observer

www.stremedius.com

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Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · Aug 13

New Perennial introduction, now Substack-free:
1989-2002: Angry young essayist for a range of now-forgotten magazines and weekly newspapers.
2008-2023: Owner/operator of Dallas’s pretty much only carnivorous plant gallery.
2024-Present: Trying this writing thing again. www.stremedius.com

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Taz 🖤🤍💚🤍🖤 @alcatazmania.bsky.social · 20h

Tasmanian Devils are biofluorescent! The 2 devils that helped discover this are named Bubbles and Spiderman!
www.npr.org/2020/12/14/9...

Toledo Zoo Discovers Tasmanian Devils That Glow

A conservation technician at the Toledo Zoo recently discovered the Tasmanian Devils had biofluorescent ears, eyes and snout. It's not exactly clear what purpose the trait serves in mammals.

www.npr.org

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Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 3m

So do roadrunners. Better: they can hop from branch to branch, or they’ll climb straight up, using their wings to clamp into the trunk. (Want to get an idea of a dromeosaur climbing up trees? Watch roadrunners do it first.)

Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 9m

Now that’s an exception that’s reasonable. I just got really tired of magazines and anthologies where the editor published their own work under the guise of “Oh, my staff (people dependent on editor good graces to stay employed) thought it was so good it HAD to be included.” Sure, Jan.

Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 37m

Any fiction editor who publishes their own work in their own publication, when they have a full mailbox of solicited submissions, loses a finger each time. (It’s not as bad as it was in the 1990s, but without eternal vigilance, it could happen again.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 12h

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 40m

Yup. I can still rattle off my old number from 1972: I had a teacher who tested us on our numbers in first grade so we could rattle it off when asked.

bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 7h

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
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I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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The Institute for Bird Populations @instbirdpop.bsky.social · 2h

🪶 In the Ojibwe language, the word for chickadee is gijigijigaaneshiinh. To hear it pronounced (it sounds really cool) visit ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/m...

Photo of a Black-capped Chickadee by Chad Hordewel. A speech bubble from the bird's mouth says "Hi, I'm gijigijigaaneshiinh"

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Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 43m

He never stopped. That said, he left “Savant” 25 years ago because of my rankness…

Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 49m

Quantis, the Koala That Walks Like A Man vs. Johnni DC, in the rematch of the age!

Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 53m

(Thanks to you, when I’m asked in job interviews “Who’s the best Captain, Kirk or Picard?”, I answer “Freeman” instead of my standbys, “Lochley, Dallas, or Rhodes.”)

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Jeanne Timmons @mostlymammoths.bsky.social · 1h

A 2024 paper by @maridehasque.bsky.social et al was mentioned during @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social's talk on de-extinction.

Here is more about that paper. 🦣 🧬

(Art: @bzaiken.bsky.social)

arstechnica.com/science/2024...

DNA from mammoth remains reveals the history of the last surviving population

The mammoths of Wrangel Island purged a lot of harmful mutations before dying off.

arstechnica.com

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Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 58m

The writer/director card for my day today:

ULTRA💀BLAST @ultrakillblast.bsky.social · 4h

Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 4h

Lower Decks got me back into Star Trek, after a 35-year hiatus. Thank you for everything: my girlfriend is now sick of being compared to Tendi.

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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 7h

It would seem I am not allowed to put any more books on the shelf.

The greatest cat in the world on a book shelf.

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Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 6h

Tired: collecting story ideas in a notebook.
Wired: going through the notebook and realizing that notes taken 2 years and a week ago all coalesce into a (reasonably) coherent story.
Inspired: New St. Remedius installments coming your way this week, including new food truck/restaurant stories.

Reposted by Dawn of the Paul Riddell

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 7h

wish there was a way to autoblock everybody who posts the same joke every time

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Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 6h

Back in the Aughts, the CIA efforts at A&M were so extensive that the CIA was buying radio ads in Dallas looking for recruits. That's why I started joking about comparable Spring Break recruiting efforts with UNIT. (25 years later, it's led to a whole weird line of stories involving St. Remedius.)

Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 9h

Oh, so like social media in general.

Jeff Samsonow @jeffsamsonow.bsky.social · 9h

The AI guardrails mean nothing, as found in this preprint study. "When LLMs compete for social media likes, they start making things up. When they compete for votes, they turn inflammatory/populist." futurism.com/future-society/...

New Paper Finds That When You Reward AI for Success on Social Media, It Becomes Increasingly Sociopathic

Stanford scientists unleashed AI bots in different environments, including social media, and they started behaving unethically.

zurl.co

Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 9h

And not “ironically,” either. Go into it with hopes of seeing something new, and knowing that there might only be a crumb of wonder in an otherwise stultifying mess. Watch it once, take the crumb, and move on. Watch it twice or more, and we move into Proverbs 26:11 territory.

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Alex Kain @tdcpresents.bsky.social · 2d

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Science Friday @scifri.bsky.social · 1d

"In no other field is there such a disconnect between the stirring conclusions reached and the sheer monotony of the daily grind," writes author Sam Kean about archeology. Then, he met a group of scientists putting ideas about the past to the test.

To Understand Ancient Beer, Try Brewing It Yourself

Author Sam Kean writes about how experimental archaeology engages the senses and offers an intimate look into ancient history.

buff.ly

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your #3 source for absurdist true crime 🔨 @davidgerard.co.uk · 1d

I absolutely assure you my viewers that I will abuse the piss out of the responsibility of this account and post whatever shit floats into my brain. this is my promise to you all. indeed it is a categorical moral imperative to be on bleusky.

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Joschua Knüppe @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social · 1d

Lemuria's bushlands are on fire!
#Paleostream! www.twitch.tv/paleostream

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The Octopus Gallery @octopusgallery.bsky.social · 1d

“It’s Tuesday,” said Hermann, dropping his head into his hands. “We’re supposed to be playing bridge tonight, not practicing necromancy.”

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Bingcai Liu @bingcailiu.bsky.social · 1d

Excited to share our research on the evolution of fossil forests from the Devonian to Jurassic! By analyzing 38 global fossil forests, we explored key parameters to better understand how these fossil forests developed over time.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ea...

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Dawn of the Paul Riddell @kyloboomhauer.bsky.social · 1d

I’m waiting for the simulations of people who never posted pictures of themselves online, and the AI has to resort to old LiveJournal icons.

Jordan S. Carroll @jordanscarroll.bsky.social · 1d

it sucks that when the post-singularity AI decides to create simulations of us all it's mainly going to go off data from all the garbage things we did on the internet. I feel sorry for my sentient replicas.