#023 - A Family of Crows, a Stolen Bridge and the End of the Useful Internet
Scientists rather you call them a flock of crows, not a murder – but what do they know about branding
A collection of thoughts, ongoing projects, and the media I’m consuming – delivered every other week.
So, a week ago, I was having my AC unit serviced. When the technician opened the window to inspect the unit, he discovered that a crow had built its nest outside.
The mother crow immediately flew out of the nest to the adjacent building where the father crow sat and they started cawing in tandem, calling for help. We quickly closed the window, but couldn't help but carefully check on the nest all week as we peaked through the closed window.
It turns out you do not want to mess with crows. They can remember faces for up to five years, are known to gossip, hold grudges, and even pass them on to the next generation.
A little more research into them showed them to be a fascinating species of bird:
In 1990, crows in Atika, Japan were first observed dropping whole walnuts onto zebra crossings when the traffic lights turned red, waiting for cars to crack them open and then collecting them at the next red light. This behaviour has since been observed in crows in California.
When a crow dies, it attracts a hundred or more crows in a ceremony that looks much like a funeral. This is thought to be a survival strategy that helps crows learn about potential threats and avoid them, regardless of how much food the place may have to offer.
They have different dialects based on their geographical locations. And will even imitate other crows to try and fit into a new place.
Crows are also one of the few species that will thank humans for their help (beside bonobos and dolphins). For example, a girl in Seattle built a relationship with the crows in her neighbourhood, and they’d bring her gifts, such as buttons, bones, shells, clips and (cue awws) even a little pearl coloured heart.
They are even known to make their own tools. New Caledonian crows are one of two species on Earth that can craft their own hooks. The other being humans. They use these hooks to carry things or reach into small crevices for food. Which explains why their beaks don't point downward.
Beside this, crows are also known to solve puzzles, help raise their younger siblings, be patient, and wait for long-term rewards instead of short-term gains, and have on occasion been known to cause blackouts.
Back to the crow family outside my window.
As the days passed, we noticed an egg missing and then two. We were understandably concerned, but the mother crow never left her nest.
And then shortly after, the crows were gone altogether. Part of me thinks that they’d sensed the incoming rains and decided to take shelter somewhere with more cover.
Here’s hoping.
In other news
Reddit decided to charge an exorbitant fee for API access causing apps like Apollo to shut down entirely. Which led to multiple subreddit blackouts in protest. You should know that Reddit’s own app is a dumpster fire. Here are the latest developments.
This is not a new trend. Remember Tweetbot? DestroyTwitter? Good times.
“We are living through the end of the useful internet. The future is informed discussion behind locked doors, in Discords and private fora, with the public-facing web increasingly filled with detritus generated by LLMs, bearing only a stylistic resemblance to useful information. Finding unbiased and independent product reviews, expert tech support, and all manner of helpful advice will now resemble the process by which one now searches for illegal sports streams or pirated journal articles. The decades of real human conversation hosted at places like Reddit will prove useful training material for the mindless bots and deceptive marketers that replace it.”
Read more - The Last Page on the Internet
If there was ever a heist movie to be made, this is it.
“A gang of thieves has pulled off an extraordinary heist by stealing a 60-foot abandoned bridge in Bihar's Rohtas district in broad daylight. The thieves, posing as state irrigation department officials, used gas cutters and earthmover machines to demolish the bridge and escaped with the scrap metal.”
Read more - In Bizarre Robbery, 60-Foot Bridge Stolen In Bihar
Jurassic Park may have been right all along.
“In January 2018, a female crocodile in a Costa Rican zoo laid a clutch of eggs. That was peculiar: She’d been living alone for 16 years… a team of researchers report that the baby crocodile was a parthenogen — the product of a virgin birth, containing only genetic material from its mother. While parthenogenesis has been identified in creatures as diverse as king cobras, sawfish and California condors, this is the first time it has been found in crocodiles. And because of where crocodiles fall on the tree of life, it implies that pterosaurs and dinosaurs might also have been capable of such reproductive feats.
Read more - Scientists Discover a Virgin Birth in a Crocodile
Talk soon
Thanks for making the time to read this!
Have a great weekend,
Vihan Shah
As always insightful and interesting...