Those puritans sure knew how to party

Oliver Heywood, a nonconformist minister who was imprisoned in the 1680s certainly knew how to party…


After dinner, Mr. Whitaker [another imprisoned Nonconformist minister] and I read in turn for an hour in Fox'es Acts and Monuments of Martyrs, Latin edition. Then went to my chamber; if my
wife were absent, I spent an hour in secret prayer, and God helped usually. After supper, we read in the book of Martyrs, studied, went to prayer, read in Baxter's paraphrase of the New Testament.

Jurassic Park

I’ve just rewatched *Jurassic World* and I feel that the marketing pitch of the fictional park owners is wrong. They say that no one would come to the park if they didn’t make bigger and better dinosaurs, but this ignores the reality that people do go to zoos to watch the same animals. I visit the elephant at the zoo every time I go, even though it is the same elephant that I saw as a child (and, indeed, that my mother saw as a child).


I think there would be a market for small, herbivorous dinosaurs. I think people would be very happy to visit zoos to see little, non-lethal dinosaurs. And of course you could run zoos for small plant eaters without the inevitable disasters that these movies call for. That would also resolve the massive insurance and public liability issues inherent in running a dinosaur theme park.


In addition, of course, I am infuriated by the weird chain of command in the control room at Jurassic World, where everything depends on the leader being present and if she is not there, then apparently total strangers can walk in and make decisions. They need a far better disaster management plan.


I must also record my sneaking approval for the mad scientist ™ who managed to survive all four movies by knowing when to bug out. Bravo to him, last seen scurrying off carrying his research prototypes with him.