Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 8.22

On August 22nd, 565 CE, the earliest known allegation of a “monster” in the River Ness was reported by St. Columbia. Of course, you all know what happens to that story hundreds of years later. In science history, in 1989 the first ring of Neptune was discovered via Voyager 2. (And now I have the Interplanet Janet song in my head.)
- Video: Tool-Making Bonobos Give Glimpse of Human Origins – I’m not sure why but I have an instinctual love for all things Bonobo-related. From cerberus40.
- Tech Confessional: The Googler Who Looked At The Worst Of The Internet
- Why Passwords Have Never Been Weaker—and Crackers Have Never Been Stronger
- The Cost of a Logo – For the graphics and typeface geeks. Clearly I’m in the wrong business.
- After Getting Funded, Some Kickstarter Projects Stall – For some entrepreneurs, getting money is not the biggest hurdle.
- Bonus Wednesday Laughs: Dog Shaming (From nowoo) and 53 ‘Arrested Development’ Jokes You Probably Missed
I <3 Bonobos! They are my favorite non-human primate.
One anthropologically pedantic nitpick with the article: the author quotes an anthropologist who says that bonobos exhibit culture. This is an ongoing argument among cultural and primatological anthropologists. I tend to think that bonobos do not have culture and that only humans have culture. Some of the great apes (bonobos and chimps specifically) exhibit signs of a sort of proto-culture (e.g., tool making) but they do not have anything even remotely close to the kind of culture humans have.
Since you’re already pedantically nitpicking, is there a precise definition of culture in this context ? Or more simply put, is there some sort of consensus of what constitutes the boundary between non-culture and culture ?
I enjoyed that logo article so much I wish it were longer and covered more logos.
Mary
That was an interesting video. I never thought of bonobos as tool makers before. Thanks for sharing it.