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[–] 146 points 9 months ago (5 children)
  • [+] 127 points 9 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 82 points 9 months ago* (13 children)

    Me neither, before I saw the first feathered life-size replicas in dino parks.

    And I have to say, they were somehow way more scary than their naked counterparts in my opinion.

    So now I am Team Feather!

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  • [–] 70 points 9 months ago* (10 children)

    Everyone that disagrees should have a little face to face time with an enraged Cassowary and then visualise a Cassowary the size of a large truck.

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  • [–] 23 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    visualise a Cassowary the size of a large truck.

    But velociraptors were actually about the size of medium-large dogs. When Jurrasic Park was making the models, the consultants stated the length from head to tail, and the modellers thought they were referring to height

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  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Ok, imagine a pack of very fast small cassowaries with very sharp teeth.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

    Utahraptor is the size of the ones in the movie and was discovered the same year the movie came out. I like to think that's what they are, but Crichton and/or Spielberg just thought "velociraptor" was a cooler name.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    An angry Canada goose protecting its nest is enough

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    I turned our geese into attack dogs when was 3 because they liked me but no one else. This resulted in at least one instance of my uncle (moms younger brother) being chased around by five pissed off geese. I have respected feathered creatures ever since.

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  • [–] 16 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I bet some of their patterns would be so beautiful and mesmerizing that you just stand there admiring it until you get chomped up.

    I am also having a great time picturing dinosaurs having wacky feather patterns, dances, and habits for mating. I collected you ferns and frilled my feathers please respond.

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  • [–] 59 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Sounds like you're boring to me, feathered dinos are cool AF

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Yeah, when science got around to it I felt very lied to - what delights we missed out on so many years of bad birb pop culture.
    I mean ofc they were feathered to some extent, we just had to guess a lot of data over the decades.

    Also, if cat-like predators can be cool (which they are), then so would be feathered dino movies.

    Just install big cat software on a cassowary hardware modded for hunt.

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  • [–] 89 points 9 months ago (26 children)

    They look way more badass with feathers.

    It’s time to grow up and accept the truth

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  • [+] 40 points 9 months ago (24 children)
  • [+] -8 points 9 months ago (16 children)

    Except when you actually read about the change in Pluto's status and how unscientific it actually is.

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  • [+] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)
  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago* (4 children)

    Pluto's downgrade was simply because we found potentially thousands of more Pluto's.

    The argument I've seen skips the step that the new definition was created to include those other Pluto like objects.

    They jump right to how the planet definition was updated to not have overlap or ambiguity with Pluto and therefore was about creating a way to exclude Pluto rather than creating a definition that doesn't lead to declaring there are now 50 planets.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (3 children)

    It's because the definition includes things that aren't really about the object itself and more about where it is. And also how inconsistent it is, as Mercury isn't in hydrostatic equilibrium and yet is explicitly included as a planet by the IAU. Nevermind the fact that the new definition was speed voted and approved by less than 400 astronomers in a convention where 2500+ people attended, let alone not even being discussed with the larger scientific community.

    But hey, if you'd rather dismiss my points because of an url, you do you. Not like this changes our everyday live anyway.

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  • [+] 1 point 9 months ago* (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    The problem is that the current definition makes no sense and is, frankly, bad.

    400 people, for a huge scientific community like astronomy, is bad. Heck even if they were literally all the astronomers in the world, the fact that it was proposed and voted on basically the same day should be noteworthy at the very least.

    And no one here is angry. I was just pointing out that name calling for no reason doesn't really add to the discussion, even a low stakes one like this.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    Who stands to gain from Pluto not being a planet?

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] -2 points 9 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 43 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    A few years ago I created a small pen & paper roleplaying game for my kids to play as dinosaurs. They very much wanted their dinosaurs to be feathered. The kids are alright.

    My daughter's young T-Rex:

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  • [–] 34 points 9 months ago (6 children)
  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Whoa heh a naked chick. Cool.

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  • [–] 17 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Thats no chick. Thats a cock!

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Johnson! That looks just like a

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  • [–] 29 points 9 months ago

    Nahh, the feather makes them pop instead of being just giant lizards.

    It also makes having pet velociraptors more fun

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago

    Feathered dinos are cooler

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  • [–] 17 points 9 months ago

    Dinos were basically Kevin's from Up.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago

    Not me, I am very, VERY happy.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago*

    They also had cheeks!

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago

    What if the feathers were badass mohawks or liberty spikes you ever think of that

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago

    I knew cassowaries were dinosaurs.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)
  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Plus they were much smaller than depicted in movies. They are estimated to have weighed about 15 kg and were about 2m long, but over half of that was tail. A Border Collie has about the same body length and a much thicker build.

    They were long, skinny murder turkeys.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    How do we know if they're skinny when we only got bones

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    Good question. Slender is a better term. Their skeletal structure is horizontally compact, more so than a Border Collie. Scientists can estimate musculature based on the size and shape of attachment points, but it's all speculative.

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  • I have a pet parrot. If that little 10oz, 8” motherfucker was my size we would all be fucked. Even at his size he can do damage, and when he’s mad he’s vicious. I’ve seen chickens fight each other or go after a bug. Those fuckers are dinosaurs.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    Me too but I think it's more because I was 5 than anything to actually do with dinosaurs having feathers or not.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Now I'm even more disappointed that I wasn't around to see them!

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Personally for me having the comfort of modern life beats getting to live with dinosaurs, but no judgement.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    I've never really liked the lizardy type of dinosaur, so I am actually happy that they are feathered

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Chonk Chicken

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