Bat videos vs. Facebook vs. COVID

I am still sick, and I am sick of social media. Been doomscrolling a lot from my "sofa of sickness" and it's pretty disenheartening. Facebook has begun restricting external links because it wants a world where everything you source comes, ideally, from within Facebook or its paying customers, a closed circuit of mostly AI-generated content where no one sees anything that could potentially make anyone any money unless Facebook gets a cut (nevermind that my social media activity has never been about making money: this blog is 27 years ad-free and runnin', folks. My Youtube is also non-monetized. I dunno even how I would do it, and have no interest in learning). I had tried posting some of the bat vids I'm going to share here on FB, and it didn't work, because I've reached my "limit" of external links for the month, or something. I also probably can't post a link to this blog (these have also typically not been working, though reports vary). 

But anyhow, screw it. While I would rather just be talking bats with friends who are interested, I am just going to post a few fun things here. Too bad I have to have comments turned off -- a certain local "character", shall we say, has ruined my ability to interact with my friends on this site because he just incessantly posts abusive/ weird-ass comments when he's able to, and there's no way to block him short of turning comments off; none of the Blogger settings make it possible to shut him out entirely, and I don't want his bad weirdness in my head, so comments remain permanently shut down here. I can block him on Facebook, but now I can't post this on Facebook, since it would be an external link. I mean, I'm easy enough to find if you want to interact. My name is Allan MacInnis. My Facebook profile is under Allan MacInnis. If you really want to interact, I'm out there. 

...but for now, fuckit, I'll just talk to myself. The internet sure was fun while it lasted. Soon it will be all just an endless field of AI-generated content, since no one makes money when AI visits your site; it doesn't count as a click to be counted, that might be used as a statistic to attract advertisers, so people who have been doing things online with the notion of supporting themselves, unless they pay the trolls at the gate, are going to be cut off from access and will eventually just give up, unless something radically changes. And bear in mind that when AI does visit your site, they're not just taking your information and warehousing it, they're doing it so they can sell it instead of you, essentially. It's replacement theory with AI as the new bad guy: lets all get our tiki torches out and march the streets chanting "bots will not replace us"!

But they will. A small number of people will control more and more of the information online, half of which is fake anyhow, suckering you in and keeping you addicted, conversation happening only on the peripheries of an increasingly controlled, profit-driven expanse for the benefit of a few billionaires. You want to interact with your friends online? Pay at the gate, and follow these rules... 

Luckily for me, I was already on the sidelines! 

But more on point, how did bat flight evolve? Probably trees-down, not ground-up; they were tree dwelling animals that started leaping down at prey and evolved wings to help them manoever. This is explained here; it's not proven, since the oldest bats in the fossil record are already in fact bats, but there are good arguments for it, involving claws on the fingertips of onychonycteris ("clawed bat"), from 52 million years ago. 

Another fun video is from Clint's Reptiles, though bats are not reptiles. Do we suspect Clint might be on the spectrum? Yes, we do, but we're enjoying Youtubers on the Spectrum lately (he's no Oddpride, mind you; hey Oddpride has a vid about altruism among vampire bats! And she also has a bandcamp under her real name, Astrid Lundberg). Also note, vampire bats are good walkers/ runners, unlike most other bats. Ze Frank entertainingly explains that a bit here. If you're drinking blood from cattle, for example, it makes sense to be able to walk around/ climb around on your prey, and if you happen to end up on the ground -- look out for that hoof! Run! 

But to come back to Clint, he is particularly keen to break down the many different kinds of bats and offer distinctions between them. Tons of interesting details there, plus his vid also gets into the question of why some bats have giant leafy noses while others have petit ones. Can you guess what the leaf-nose is for? How does the bat above do things differently from the bat below? 

Personally I prefer the petit-nosed bat, just aesthetically. You might also ask about the evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of having ginormous ears! 

I think I might try to get more involved with bat conservation. I miss bats. I guess what bats remain around town are all in torpor or hibernation or such by now, anyhow. Did you read about delayed implantation/ delayed ovulation? Another fascinating rabbithole: bats mate in the fall (or the females are impregnated while they hibernate, as shown by David Attenborough) then (keeping either sperm alive inside or forming blastocysts that they store), the females can decide when it makes sense to allow the pregnancy to continue to term, based on food supplies. So much I never knew about bats! It feels kinda weird to say I'm down a bat rabbithole, but...  

Anyhow, I'm feeling much better than even yesterday and hope to be back in the world by Tuesday. Meantime, happy bats!