In a message dated 96-01-02 20:33:27 EST, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> All of these points
>will be moot very soon, as all clocks become digital and birds that depend
>on clockwise and counterclockwise quickly go extinct.

Actually, seabirds have been going digital for eons. The do 0's, 1's, 2's,
3's, 4's, 5's, 6's, 7's, 8's (of course), 9's, not to mention all the letters
in the alphabet, all the symbols in Chinese, Japanese, Sandskrit, Arabic,
...and, ...well, you get the picture. It's the birders on pelagic trips who
are dependent on a clockface orientation for pointing out seabirds that will
probably become extinct first. I am even sophisticated beyond that. We
record such creatures by degrees relative to the vessel's heading -- digital
yes, and then all this is entered in a computer -- still digital. Coriolis
effect has nothing to do with it, except that Coriolis was a mathmatician,
and ...ummm, that means digital too. It's all digital! What's so
chicanerous about that? ...except that this thread now has nothing
what-so-ever to do with left-billed crossbills or left footed ospreys, or
where ever it was when it started.

Richard A. Rowlett <pagodroma at aol.com>
Bellevue, WA, USA