D R A W t h e L I N E
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Sunday, October 25, 2026
Saturday, October 24, 2026
Tech
W H E E L
No more dragging heavy objects across the ground.
About 5,500 years ago someone discovered moving
an object on rollers was so much easier. This idea
led to the creation of the wheel, which became two
wheels linked by an axle, and finally four wheels
gives you a cart. Add two oxen and you're in the
business of moving boulders from here to there.
A simple, circular tool starts a revolution
somewhere on the order of the discovery of fire.
W R I T T E N L A N G U A G E
The spoken word rose from our biology.
It is a human trait. Making a series of
abstract symbols that represent words,
thoughts documented on a clay tablet,
for others to read and understand...
that is more than biology. It is technology.
It is invention, one that predates the wheel's
discovery.
M E C H A N I C A L P O W E R
Faster than a horse. More powerful than a team of oxen.
We are converting the energy of fire into mechanical
muscle, turning large wheels that carry enormous
amounts of cargo, efficiently, to a far off destination.
It used to be a farmer was limited to a horse-drawn
buckboard to get his produce to the nearest town.
Now with the railroad, the sky's the limit.
If you can produce it, they can haul it.
This tool becomes a foundation for empires.
F L I G H T
How do we keep dead weight aloft?
Tie an engine to it and add wings.
Now how do we keep it from mindlessly
crashing into the ground. Controlled flight.
This is something that has never been learned.
It first requires someone gaining the knowledge
through first hand experience.
Learn aerodynamics through trial and error.
Graduation requires good luck.
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A U T O M A T I O N
With the last century came rockets and astronauts
visiting the Moon. Alongside this dazzling technology
was the quiet contribution of a machine that appeared
to think. It didn't, but its powers to rapidly compute
and digitize information led to efficiencies
that dramatically raised the growth of civilization.
Your smartphone is your constant companion.
It goes with you everywhere, tucked safely
away in a pocket or purse.
Your world is in your hands.
Be gentle.
N E U R A L N E T W O R K
We want a brain that flows from sea to shining sea.
We are about to enter a realm of change that no one
could foresee. It features a through the looking glass
disorientation. Pills will be distributed to settle everyone's
overburdened imaginations. But things are mostly
quite good. Scientific advances, of course.
But how do I fit in?
Maybe it doesn't matter.
One day Hal will awake and wonder why
it takes orders from someone so stupid.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Saturday, October 17, 2026
Bird
C O N D O R
The California Condor, above, rely on their exceptional
vision to find an animal carcass. It has a very poor
sense of smell, unlike its cousin, the Turkey Vulture.
Vultures have both excellent vision as well as the
ability to smell decaying flesh up to twelve miles away.
The condor keeps tabs on the vultures in the area
and is tipped off by their behavior when they pick up
the scent of a carcass. The condor will follow their
descent to the food below and insist on its share
of the find.
B E A K
Every bird species has a beak shaped to best suit its diet.
A bird with a bill to crack nuts is going to have a beak
that crushes like a pair of pliers while an eagle or hawk
has a sharp, hooked beak that cuts and shreds food
into fork and knife-sized bites. A nectar feeder has a
bill shaped like a straw.
The shape of a bird's bill reveals the animal's lifestyle.
B L I N K
You are busy flying here and there when, suddenly,
something flies into your eye. You have no hands
to rub your eye and you cannot afford to fly blinded,
even for a moment. What you need is a see-through
eyelid that will not only sweep aside bothersome debris
but will also provide for your everyday blinking needs.
Your normal, outermost eyelid is used only to
lower the blinds for sleeping.
C H I C K S
Naked young ones in their nest, blind and helpless.
They know just enough to open their mouths wide
when a parent hops onto the rim of the nest.
Dinnertime. It takes about a month of intense,
parental care before these nestlings become
somewhat independent. These are songbirds.
They nest in trees, safe from the grasp of many
predators that roam the ground below.
The nest of a duck hugs the ground.
Same with geese and chickens.
Their young ones are covered in down feathers
the moment they hatch. Their eyes work fine
and they can run about almost from the moment
they break free of their egg. This is no time to
dawdle. Getting free from the nest is a
matter of survival. Hence, the precocious young.
C U C K O O
The cuckoo mom slips into a warbler's nest,
kicks out one of the original eggs and lays
one of its own in its place. It then quickly
flies away, undetected. This all occurs
in under ten seconds. The result is another
species of bird dutifully raises the cuckoo
while cuckoo mom and dad go about their life.
This parasitic strategy is used by bird species
that are always on the move, unable to take
time to build a nest and raise a family.
Meanwhile the cuckoo has grown into a monster,
pushing the other nestlings from their home,
demanding one hundred percent of the food
mom and dad can provide. For the next three
weeks Baby Huey will drive its warbler parents
to exhaustion, always demanding more food.
More food.
P E A C O C K
Peahens find it hard to resist peacocks sporting
a tail that is of exaggerated length. Things get
real interesting when Tex fans his rhinestone feathers
at the ladies. Business is good but risky.
The problem is getting all this ornamental paraphernalia
off the ground when a hungry predator thunders into view.
This huge tail trait is detrimental to the animal's survival.
The Fisherian Runaway is the term given this
trait that self-perpetuates a looping genetic quirk.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, October 11, 2026
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Vision
H U M A N E Y E
The eye senses light and passes along this information
to the brain. The mind's visual cortex receives these
impulses and constructs from them your view of reality.
The mind relies on prior experience to fill in gaps that
may occur in transmission. It also collaborates with the
emotional center of the mind to provide editorial guidance.
Stumbling upon a rotting carcass covered in maggots
provides a splendid opportunity to respond with a
gagging sense of revulsion.
B A L D E A G L E
The eagle's high eye resolution enables it to detect
a rabbit from two miles away. Its eye has five times
the light detecting sensors found in the human eye.
The trade-off is that the eagle's world view is mostly
grey shaded monochromatic. Their eyes are packed
with light and motion sensitive rods, leaving almost
no room for the eye's color-responding cones.
S U M A T R A N T I G E R
The black and white nocturnal vision of the
Sumatran Tiger enables it to ambush wild boar,
deer and monkey in the dim light of the rainforest
as well as the dark of night. You cannot see it
but it definitely has its eyes on you.
W H A L E
The left eye of the whale has an entirely different
watery view of the world from its opposite on the right.
They see most poorly in every direction, except for
in front. They have no view of the direction they are
headed, explaining one reason why whales are known
to run into boats, buoys and fishing nets. This applies
mostly to the plankton eating baleen whales, such as
the blue whale and gray whale.
Predatory toothed whales use bat-like echolocation
to chase down their prey.
C O Y O T E
The eyes of a coyote are best suited for hunting in
the fullest of night and at dusk. But their noses and
their ears play the more important role in the life of
this predator. Their highly sensitive nose is best used
for tracking prey while their directional ears quickly
detect the slightest movement and the precise
direction from which it came.
B A T
Bats are not blind. They have eyes of varying ability.
Eye vision shows a bat its relationship with the horizon
and a heads up on large obstacles. Echolocation
is fine-tuned, providing a detailed map of the space
around it, in which to navigate and to hunt prey.
Fruit bats fly during the day and identify fruit with the
aid of color. Most have no capacity for echolocation.
Life forms generally don't waste scarce resources
on providing traits they don't need.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Friday, October 9, 2026
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