From the "Things could be worse - at least we're not hunted by birds" department:

Researcher: Early Man Was Hunted by Birds

Researchers had speculated the Taung child was killed by a leopard or saber-toothed feline. But 10 years ago, Berger and fellow researcher Ron Clarke submitted the theory the hunter was a large predatory bird, based on the fact most of the other fossils found at the same site were small monkeys that showed signs of having been killed by a predatory bird.

...

Five months ago, Berger read an Ohio State University study of the hunting abilities of modern eagles in West Africa believed similar to predatory birds of the Taung child's era.

The Ohio State study determined that eagles would swoop down, pierce monkey skulls with their thumb-like back talons, then hover while their prey died before returning to tear at the skull. Examination of thousands of monkey remains produced a pattern of damage done by birds, including holes and ragged cuts in the shallow bones behind the eye sockets.

Berger went back to the Taung skull, and found traces of the ragged cuts behind the eye sockets. He said none of the researchers who had for decades been debating how the child died had noticed the eye socket damage before.

Berger concluded man's ancestors had to survive not just being hunted from the ground, but from the air. Such discoveries are "key to understanding why we humans today view the world they way we do," he said.

eta: freaky death-by-birds x-post.

Anonymity vs. Accountability.

Interesting article. I think the author lost the thread a bit towards the end, but his main points seem pretty solid. (Except I'm pretty sure you can't get a valid photo ID proving your age w/o a legal name on it. Unless he's counting fake IDs as "valid.")

Ok, that's a pretty funny x-post. Damn. Wonder why we didn't develop some of those bird-fooling eyebrows like the dog. Wonder how that would look. Eh, probably for the best.

That was pretty interesting.

(Except I'm pretty sure you can't get a valid photo ID proving your age w/o a legal name on it. Unless he's counting fake IDs as "valid.")

I didn't think he was saying he can, just that there's no real reason why you couldn't do it that way.

Except I'm pretty sure you can't get a valid photo ID proving your age w/o a legal name on it.

I don't think he's saying you can, but that there's no reason they couldn't do it that way. You don't need to know my name to sell me beer, just to know that the person in the photo has been certified by the state to be over 21.

Project Runway: When they announced that Daniel and Andrae had won -- I really thought that Daniel was going to kiss Andrae -- right there! On the Runway!

Huh -- maybe. I think what threw me is that the other examples:

Historically, accountability has been tied to identity, but there's no reason why it has to be so. My name doesn't have to be on my credit card. I could have an anonymous photo ID that proved I was of legal drinking age. There's no reason for my e-mail address to be related to my legal name.

are all things that are true of the real world, right now. The photo ID example is the only hypothetical one.

Do you think Project Runway could be improved if the models had to fend off attacks from large predatory birds that try to swoop down and pierce the models' skulls with their thumb-like back talons?

Yeah, I can see how it could be taken that way now that you point it out. Didn't occur to me, though.

Your name doesn't have to be on your credit card? I thought even company cards did that. Is it then all about the signatures matching? Because as often as not, I need to show picture ID when I use the credit card.

Well, often as not when I'm not at a restaurant. They never seem to care.