myrmepropagandist

pro-ant propaganda, building electronics, writing sci-fi teaching mathematics & CS. I live in NYC.

tumblr: https://futurebird.tumblr.com/
twitter: someone stole my username there
pronouns: she/her/lady/ma'am/That One/Mrs.
$: 1DS6Qg8UgDws3kJ5qWa24agrVvP8j7iuUU

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npub1ppewzys45ygvxrmaxs9hwwrtt706u2pgcwrllex9dpqyt7wpnthqjaqv2g

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futurebird_at_sauropods.win@momostr.pink

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Last Notes

2025-01-08 20:35:38

The three wise ants are now in color! Next years’s Christmas card is going to be amazing.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/113/794/645/688/729/278/original/16005774583670eb.jpeg

2024-09-14 13:52:46

I'll be honest I thought that getting "tea drunk" was a tea head myth. The notion that simply drinking a good quality puerh or oolong cup after cup for about an hour will "send you to another realm" sounded like typical tea hype.
However.
Maybe there is something to this. It's not like just having too much caffeine. Or it's like having "too much" caffeine in some new kind of way.
Have you ever been "tea drunk" ?

2024-09-05 10:02:34

Imagine ending up being racist because someone from a "foreign country" tricked you in to believing racist stuff to further their political goals. Sounds pretty humiliating to not even have your "hate ideas" "made in America" ...

2024-08-25 14:25:39

Sick of left online creators pointing out how *platforms* and structure/ incentives of the social media they choose to use warp discourse & create infighting ... only to shrug their shoulder & say "go outside" ?
I mean they are correct. They have identified the problem. Facebook, X, Instagram, BlueSky, Threads, (if those last two remain silos / walled gardens) can never be productive places.
But "touch grass" isn't a solution. Now... if only there was something else they could mention...

2024-08-15 18:36:50

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He's more alarming than most people think. But, I think there are things about Trump that are objectively worse.

2024-08-15 18:20:39

Suppose Biden had been running against a Republican less... alarming than Trump. Suppose he was running against a Mitt Romney or similar. Someone who didn't contest an election. And assume Biden was doing poorly as before in polls over "age" or whatever. Do *you* think Biden would have still stepped out of the race?

2024-08-13 02:47:26

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Um.

2024-08-11 23:35:29

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Movie narrator voice: "This time everything is ... GOING SOUTH."

2024-08-11 23:33:01

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I think a horror movie about slightly larger than normal predatory nocturnal geese could have legs... (and wings)
NIGHTHONK: The Last Migration

2024-08-11 23:20:05

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Please do not manifest nocturnal geese. I already live in terror as it is.

2024-08-05 17:09:56

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When there is a generalized crash it exposes who was set to sell at the first signs of instability and where. So, any sector that joined the panic isn't as confident as it pretends.
Though, there will probably be some buy back over the week? And that's interesting too. IDK if it will stick the market hasn't made much sense to me for a long time.

2024-08-05 16:36:27

If only someone, or several someones had been kind enough to warn everyone that AI isn't a money printing machine, that it was being oversold, and hyped. (and probably someday doomed to be subject to ugly legal challenges if we have any sense)

2024-07-31 14:40:40

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I think galling plants is the most powerful ability... though making silk is very tempting...

2024-07-31 14:40:03

Choose an insect superpower:

2024-07-26 00:05:13

What is the point of having a lot of kids if you don't even know who they are? Like isn't that the whole point of having a kid? You get to be a huge part of this person's life and find out who they are?

2024-07-13 12:55:47

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So, I think asking if Biden should step aside seems like a tempting way to make this less stressful to some, and sheer lunacy to others. Both groups of people *just want to defeat Trump.*
Accusing either side of being bots or Republican trolls is damaging. We're all just trying to figure out how to win the damn election.
Sooner or later the point will be moot. And whatever happens we'll work to win.

2024-07-13 12:51:40

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If Biden passed the honor to Harris* we would instantly be treated to second guessing of that choice and an avalanche of things wrong with Harris mostly in the form of "Is America Ready for a Woman Black President?"
Every person asking this question would say how THEY don't have such issues they are just so "concerned" ... on and on.
*Every time someone discusses replacing Biden with anyone other than Harris my stomach turns a little.

2024-07-13 12:48:00

Is it really even possible for Biden, if he really wanted to, to step aside and for that process to be smooth and effective?
I have heard Democratic centrists say it's not. Thus the whole debate is just hurting Biden. Fair enough. Conservative pundit Jesse Waters agreed with this. (But I think because he thinks Biden is easy to beat, he's not a very bright man.)
I am confident that, should Biden step aside, the focus would instantly shift.

2024-07-08 16:23:24

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It's OK in a pinch, but the work of experienced dentists *is* higher quality for the most part.
I went to NYU dental college and they were so slow... and the fillings fell out shortly after.
It's worth finding a good dentist...

2024-07-08 12:48:58

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In NYC it's 2k for a crown AT LEAST. I had to take out a little mini mortgage to get all my teeth done (there are zero interest loans you can get for tooth work)
I've since paid it off and very happy with my teeth HOWEVER. I felt like it was much too expensive and I could only do it with a better paying job, at my old job I just couldn't afford to get my teeth fixed all the way. (and so they got worse and it was more expensive when I did it)

2024-07-08 09:29:51

Yeah I'm a radical. I believe in crazy stuff like that OSHA should exist, kids should learn about evolution in school and people should have teeth.

2024-07-05 01:31:39

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no sorry I just like the lichen

2024-07-04 23:24:30

I met some beautiful ants in mom’s garden today.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/730/790/982/568/950/original/c5e97f53ab3b3900.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/730/791/700/492/708/original/ce64844fce60e438.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/730/792/584/083/538/original/d833c1c33fecdaff.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/730/793/440/246/657/original/aa77dc35048231c6.png

2024-07-03 12:27:32

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As a girl this was baffling. Since I knew that pink was "for me" ... did the boys hate ... me?
All of the gender things were just so alien & random to me. I didn't feel strongly about pink, or about being prim or tough, I didn't have any... natural sense of what I ought to be doing or feeling. Yet, here are all these people acting like they "just know" ... was there something missing in me since I didn't "just know" ? Since all I could do is follow along and hope no one noticed?

2024-07-03 11:03:43

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For my husband it's ordering drinks. He told me about the sheer terror of:
1. Not being able to tell what gender drinks were.
2. Being attracted to drinks that were "for women"
3. Ordering whisky on ice because that was the one thing he knew wouldn't be "incorrect" and hating it.
Now he drinks boba and laughs about it.
But why did this world have to stress out this kind wonderful man over something so ... pointless? He was afraid to sip my martini. Why do we do this to each other??

2024-07-03 10:43:54

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And there are a lot of adults with a kind of buried terror of having their gender questioned.
Obviously such fearful people are also vulnerable to being made into bullies themselves.
Without reflection we assume our secret fears are universal. No one cares about the little hairs on your chin. And even if they did? It doesn't really matter. 5/5

2024-07-02 12:55:16

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I struggled with some bad depression and an ED as a teen. And going "ad free"? after about three months with zero exposure to ads with the very narrow, and totally irrelevant (to me) ideas of "beauty" had a massive impact. Stabs of irrational disgust vanished. I don't like to admit to having a malleable mind, but I guess I do.
When I encounter people who say these things don't impact them... I'm skeptical TBH.
If you have such problems why not try going ad free and find out?

2024-07-02 12:48:38

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I sometimes say "It's against my religion to view advertisements from people I do not know personally." And this is mostly a joke. Except, when I think about how important it is to me, and the positive impact it has had on my life... maybe it isn't a joke.

2024-07-02 12:18:03

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Exactly. I don't think of myself as immune to advertising, propaganda. It has an impact on me... it erodes my boundaries, changes my expectations. This is why I put a lot of effort into making my media environment nearly ad-free. And minimizing my contact with generated bot content. Even with all ads hidden, places like facebook and X are still hazardous.
Images are very powerful. I thought a lot about sharing the image that inspired this post since more people would see it.

2024-07-02 12:05:36

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Perhaps I'm missing something about the way people enjoy these images? I just can't help but imagine that the people liking and sharing this stuff must be in some kind of haze not to notice or be bothered by the fakeness of it all.
If you scan the comments some people *will* say "this is fake!" but the response they get is "everything is fake" this is the cool "media savvy" response. It's all lies. Nothing is real.
But.
And I can not stress this enough:
:: : Everything is NOT fake. : ::

2024-07-02 12:01:03

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What does it say if we spend our days gazing at fake images of fake suffering heroes from wars never declared, in places we know little about for reasons we can't articulate? Stirrings of national pride, oh & indignation "Why don't images like THIS ever trend?" Be the 100,000th "like" don't see the irony of that either!
Isn't it dystopian? Like a heavy-handed sci fi? I'm as unsettled by the popularity as the images themselves.
I guess one way to process this would be to write horror of it.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/716/760/142/457/995/original/c8f38e3389d4a544.png

2024-07-02 11:36:00

Facebook is (still) full of fake photographs of "disabled veterans" sitting on the curb that say "Why don't photos like this ever trend?"
But it's not a photo of real people. This strikes me as disrespectful, fraudulent, stolen valor stuff. Never mind the endless whitewashing of the US Military by playing on our valid desire to take care of the people harmed by it.
You can report images as "AI generated" but it doesn't do anything. (I suspect it'd be used to make the images less detectable.)

2024-07-02 10:53:17

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This is a sincere question. I'm looking for ideas of better things to do.
I'm not dismissing your concern it's a good one.

2024-07-02 10:23:34

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Sometimes a key limit on abuse is the knowledge that "the people won't stand for it" ... that there is a point at which all of the teachers, and doctors, and mechanics and nurses won't go to work but instead show up at your governor's mansion and throw rotten vegetables at you because you are so terrible.
That all these people who keep the world running, and your catered dinners showing up in the dumb waiter might stop focusing on their mortgages and start throwing a fit.
Are we there yet?

2024-07-02 10:20:32

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Anyway the same is true of abuse of power. Powerful people are limited in the abuse they can do, not by rules, or by laws, but by who they are and the respect they have for their office.
That ought to give you a little jolt of terror but it also explains a lot.
There is no perfect set of rules that can't be twisted into something ugly.
This is not to say we shouldn't try, but it's always about the people who hold the power and mutual respect.

2024-07-02 10:18:24

If you feel safe walking down the street in your town, safe knowing no one will hit you over the head and take all your stuff or hurt you it's not because there are police, or because there are laws, it's because your neighbors are decent people.
(I feel very safe in NYC and in the Bronx for this reason. I like the people here, they have had my back many many times, and I've had theirs.)

2024-07-02 10:14:52

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What did you want him to do?

2024-07-01 14:38:33

I don't get the supreme court decision. It's confusing. Unclear.
I don't understand the principle behind any immunity at all for presidents. My little anarchist heart just can't find the thread of what they are seeing in any of this.
We need to replace most of these justices, we need a better court. What a failure.

2024-06-30 23:31:55

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Given that "paleo diet" people don't agree on anything because the diet isn't based on anything but vibes about "what cave men eat" I don't see how they can claim foods are or are not "paleo"
It really gives me no confidence about the rest of the chart... which is inadequate since it can't tell you if a food contains an ingredient or not.

2024-06-30 23:06:15

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They've taken up space on the chart to tell you if a meal is "paleo" or not (that's not an allergy! that's not even a real thing!) but if you want to know what's in their dressing? You can't.

2024-06-30 22:55:35

This "Allergy Guide" trend needs to DIE. Or it's going to make *me* die. Increasingly restaurants will NOT show an ingredients list, but instead a simplified chart made for babies that only list the "big five" allergens.
As someone with an anaphylactic reaction to sunflower oil and flax which are NOT big five this is useless to me. So I just can't know if your food will kill me or not. So I don't buy it.
The number of places where I can eat keeps shrinking.
(sesame isn't even on their guide)
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/708/028/765/119/613/original/6bc85a37fedf63a1.png

2024-06-29 12:48:49

If any of you have a cat, and have had the problem of her "acolytes" showing up and leaving gifts for "the blessed one" at your door because you let your cat get online and she started a cult... well what do you think is the ethical thing to do with all the gifts?
I know this is a common problem for cat owners, but I'm really struggling.

2024-06-29 11:27:31

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Look to the ant, lazybones; consider her ways, and be wise:
She has no king, no boss, or ruler, but she knows to store her provisions in summer and plan for the harvest.
Proverbs 6:6-8

2024-06-29 10:59:28

In Oklahoma they are passing a law to mandate a Bible be in every classroom.
I don't have as much of an issue with this as I do with hanging the (Protestant Evangelical) ten commandments on the wall. The Bible, like many other religious texts is an important book...
Just one little question:
Which Bible?
Ya'll say "The Bible" like you have a Pope and there is only one. That's not true. So... which one?
If you don't know then maybe you are not qualified to make such mandates.

2024-06-28 09:29:49

Democrats catastrophize, Democrats listen to their opposition and take their concerns seriously, Democrats take criticism (from the right, not from the left) seriously and adjust and respond (this would be a good trait were it more balanced.)
Stop it. Simply claim it was the best debate ever, best debate performance ever. Highest energy Biden we'd ever seen. Say it over and over and move on. That is how the Republicans would do.
Sometimes ya'll are too honest for your own good.

2024-06-28 01:53:02

Also, please let go of the fantasy of Trump in a fact checked debate. He'd insult the fact checker, call them names, keep rolling and say even more wild and untrue things. "That fact checker was paid off by NATO to hide the truth from everyone." etc.
You can't fact check away lies that some people *want* to believe.
Anyway maybe this debate will help the fundraising gap move back where it ought to be.

2024-06-27 21:18:54

How do the rest of you with cats keep them off of the internet?

2024-06-24 21:21:42

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I don't think it's lazy. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what people are looking from a political party.
A friend had a big party to celebrate her US citizenship years back and I told her all about voting in NYC. "you should just register as a Democrat, the races that count are the primaries, if you want to have any impact."
"When are the meetings?"
"That ... what?"
"The meetings if you are in the Democratic party. To discuss things and plan."

2024-06-24 11:48:50

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Why not prove me wrong about this cynicism I have for Democrats. Unleash the beast!
Or, hope that we'll have just enough to get by without the wheels falling off ... why do I think it will be the latter?

2024-06-24 11:47:44

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Democrats have millions and millions of people who do not all love them, but who will probably vote for them in a state of high alarm but I have not seen much effort to harness that energy.
This was something that Obama did extremely well. Did.
Darkly, I think that was because the Democratic party, doesn't really want to unleash this kind of energy since it's very hard to control people once they are organized.
Because the point of organizing is that the people take back the control.

2024-06-24 11:44:50

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My personal project has been checking that people I know personally are registered to vote. Second to that reinforcing my involvement in local community groups since, if things get bad we will need those networks. In the early days of the pandemic we created some good networks to do things like distribute food, and assist older people who live alone. That's dropped off a bit, and it needs to be revived.
But shouldn't there be something coming from Democrats?

2024-06-24 11:42:25

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But, if you do follow all of this stuff you are probably, like me, on the verge of dissolving into a cloud of nervous particles.
How do we harness that nervous energy? The right has excelled at harnessing angry and fearful energy as of late. Their "well-informed" base is pouring their energy into two things:
1. Making the election close enough to fight over it.
2. Getting ready to fight over it.
They do not need to win, to 'win' just be close enough for doubt.

2024-06-24 11:38:16

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For example: If Trump is elected, then at least two Supreme court Justices in their 70s will feel free to retire.
If they retire under Trump they would be replaced by more conservative justices in their 40s.
If there are younger conservative justices on the court then, for the next 40 years, every attempt to address climate change, human rights, everything will be obstructed and dismantled.
You have to chain events together before it comes down to material consequences.

2024-06-24 11:33:31

At first it is hard to believe that most people don't pay much attention to politics. Most people don't know what "project 24" is or the significance of the phrase "obstructing an official procedure" (maybe you are such a person) --but, when I think about how tense, nervous and occasionally helpless political news makes me feel I totally get it. Also, a lot of this stuff is boring and kind of technical.

2024-06-21 11:35:29

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I should really do more ant-themed lists.
Ten CommandmANTS

2024-06-21 11:30:54

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If you want your youTube video to do numbers reframe it as a list. Especially a “top ten list” people love lists and the commandments are popular for this same reason. They tempt us with the idea that religion and morality can be distilled into something easy: Ten simple steps to be a good person. Top ten way to go right to hell. Five easy steps to know you have done what is right.
It is the sin of sloth that tempts us here. To cite another popular religious listicle

2024-06-21 11:01:43

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It’s disorienting and ominous, from this perspective to hear so many people “condemning the ten commandments” (of course that isn’t what’s happening— this is about religious liberty) but that isn’t how it’s being played. If you don’t want to hang the commandments in every classroom you must be against the values they represent. It’s all very 1990s— thing is those little towns have changed.
The churches have been replaced with prosperity gospel franchise operations. Mega churches.

2024-06-21 10:55:47

“they are attacking the ten commandments”
Listen I know this is hard to relate to if you live in a place where everyone isn’t going to the same 8 different Christian churches in a town with a population of less than 80,000 but this is what the little town where my mom grew up in PA was like. Churches are the social fabric— a “different religion” means someone is Catholic or goes to one of the three Black churches.
This commandments in the schools thing is supposed to stirred up an old wound.

2024-06-21 10:41:19

If he's "gone crazy" and is practically "giving these mattresses away" it seems wrong to me to take advantage of Mr. Eddie in his moment of disorientation just to get a deal... What do you think?

2024-06-19 21:57:31

Is this a creepy idea for a school assignment or a cool idea?
Make Your Own Doomsday Library
You are going to live in space, or in a bunker and you will only have the materials you can assemble on a 1GB hard drive. Make a list of the books and materials you would bring and assemble your emergency library.
Optional: Create a device for reading your library that will last as long as possible.
It's an interesting exercise and might even be useful.

2024-06-19 21:26:13

Sometimes I think about the interesting mineral formations & fossils human manufactured items will become. What will happen to concrete and rebar if it isn't tuned to soil? Will landfills form deposits of their own strange oils and gasses? Will plastic fossilize into amber like formations?
Even bricks could become interesting finds for the minds of the future ... if there is anyone there to admire them.
What if plastic amber was a luxury jewel?

2024-06-19 10:10:52

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I don't agree with this. It's not the tools it's the people, and the degree to which people control their feeds.
You just can't stir up a big audience by being mean to people since there aren't a lot of people here who enjoy it.
I think quotes would only make things better, especially for attribution and splitting threads up. Right now everything ends up in one huge thread with forty people tagged.

2024-06-19 09:46:55

So of ya'll talk about "reply guys" on Mastodon. And yeah that exists, but it's like the least annoying of the gruesome menagerie I used to deal with every day on X social media.
There were:
- Stalker
- Mr. Race Science
- Always Wrong, Thinks He's Right
- Mr. I'm Making This About Politics
- Ms. Gender(ing everyone for no reason)
- Mr. Just Plain Racist
- Mr. I thought I blocked you?
- Mr. "I know where you work"
and on and on

2024-06-18 20:09:33

Why is worm music kind of one-note?
They are strictly D composers.

2024-06-18 11:48:54

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There’s a joke about an engineer, physicist and mathematician who wake up to discover a fire in their wastebasket. The engineer quickly estimates the water needed to put it out, doubling the quantity for good measure and puts out the fire. The physicist calculates the amount needed and uses exactly that: putting out the fire. The mathematician looks at the fire realizing it is a “solved problem,” she falls back asleep.
This “mathematical laziness” is valued in Computer Science as well.

2024-06-18 11:42:48

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Given that computers are ubiquitous and powerful tools part of that education should enable students to understand these tools sufficiently to embark on their redesign— and to, of course, use these tools effectively and responsibly.
Tools are reflections of the aspirations and values of their creators— what values are embodied by the computer? what are its limitations and and advantages?

2024-06-18 11:37:14

The “Liberal Arts” education is a suite of skills, philosophical stances, and information that has been refined over hundreds of years. It includes both technical skills and problem solving techniques— it provides a foundation for more specialized study but also for philosophical reflection. It evolves over time, but isn’t subject whims of the market or fashion.
What is the role of Computer Science in the Platonic ideal of the liberal arts education?

2024-06-17 11:42:05

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I have a less ominous version of this tale. When studying for quals I put all of the theorems in analysis I might need to prove in a little hand-written booklet (about 5x8cm) so I could quiz myself on the subway. These theorems became my whole world. I was staring at a proof when a man, puzzled by my state of concentration, asked “are those… your prayers?”
I was disoriented by the interruption. But on a moment’s swift reflection I could only answer: “Yes.”

2024-06-16 21:00:46

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How could you ... discover anything new? Learn anything?
The whole point of research is when it surprises you. When they user keeps doing something you didn't expect and you don't know why.
How could AI ever ever ever produce this most rare but also most valuable of data?
All it can do is make results that ... look like other results, that say what you expect them to say. How do people keep missing the point of what LLMs can and CAN NOT do?

2024-06-16 14:30:14

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What I did for my mom. I observed the ants in her kitchen for days making her exasperated since I wouldn't let anyone kill them. I found their nest (outside under a rock) and how they were getting in (old milk delivery box) WHY they were coming in (for water) There was a leak under the sink (where I found a second colony of carpenter ants.)
I relocated the carpenter ants, fixed the leak and sealed the holes. No more unwanted breakfast guests!

2024-06-16 12:59:57

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This is why I'm deeply suspicious of anyone who claims to be "planting X trees when you do Y"
These are just indulgences of our modern time.

2024-06-16 12:59:09

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Tree planting schemes have been used as green-washing more often than they have been sincere or effective means to care for the earth. Some "tree planting" operations are just logging companies who sell the rights of their monoculture fields to companies who want to claim they planted trees. The trees are harvested years later.
In NYC we planted millions of trees. But they just sent saplings and let amateurs spam them wherever. Years later they have all died.

2024-06-16 12:56:29

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I don't have a good feeling about this. "Planting trees" is almost a red flag for me at this point since very few people seem to understand how complex and the real investment needed to plant a tree.
You can't just spam saplings and expect a forest. A forest is a living complex system easier to preserve than it is to build.
"planting trees?" Really? What kind? Are they native species? Who will care for them in the critical first years? Who owns the land?

2024-06-16 12:01:52

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These fake pages ought to be blacklisted to oblivion. But I don't see any search engines taking this seriously at all.
Not really in their interest to do that. We need to make more noise about just how terrible these pages are. Fake experts? Fake people? Fake images? Fake facts?
Information pollution & fragmentation of natural networks of human learning. A rot on the body of human knowledge: any search engine that puts such pages at the top should be ashamed.

2024-06-16 11:55:12

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We are expected to take this kind of BS as "harmless gaming of the system." but I find it incredibly distrustful and hurtful. It's making it harder for people to find each other by putting all these fake people in the way. It's LIES the pages are full of half-true nonsense. It's making people know less and filling their heads with false facts.
And this kind of page is what you find FIRST. You won't find @npub1ucc…jxn6 or the formiculture forum.
You find these mendacious SEO ghosts.

2024-06-16 11:48:52

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As far as I can tell these people are phantoms. That's cruel on multiple levels. If I was not familiar with this SEO trick I'd spend time looking for them both (to politely tell them about the errors in their blog... which I would assume they would care about since they love insects.)
But I know what this is now. It's probably the exterminators. To get their page ranks up they need "legitimate" pages... like personal blogs by enthusiasts to link to them.
They are pretending to be *ME*😡😳😩
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/626/124/810/566/837/original/aecc61f823ad8d6e.png

2024-06-16 11:44:31

I decided to find out if any progress had been made on the science behind why some ants are attracted to electrical fields. After filtering out exterminators (it's so demoralizing to search for information on creatures you love and find nothing but people who know nothing about them boasting about how they will kill them all) I found what looked like a blog. But, who the heck is "James Brown"? Never heard of the dude. Maybe he could be my new friend if he likes ants enough to blog about them!
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/626/115/509/865/205/original/162d9144f985d212.png

2024-06-16 11:25:32

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Despite loving ants I have no wild ants in my apartment. I have wild house spiders (fat due to escaped ants) ant that's it.
Because I have Pica there are no pest roaches. My feeder roaches wouldn't last a day if they got out, but they are less interested in exploring than ants and never even try to climb the sides of their enclosure.

2024-06-16 10:53:23

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What *is* harmful is collecting established colonies. Worse? An establish colony hardly ever thrives after being collected, the trauma is just too much. The workers never adjust. It's not worth it.
So, if you want to keep ants learn when your local species fly and catch those queens. Don't feel bad about catching two or three for each colony you intend to raise. (Queens often randomly die early on.)
Put them in test tubes and there begins a multi-year commitment to an incredible pet.

2024-06-16 10:50:30

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We discuss the environmental impact of antkeeping often and some people worry that collecting queens could harm ant populations.
The consensus seems to be that, unless antkeeping becomes much much much more popular attracting industrial levels of collecting, taking alate queens is probably the least harmful way to get an ant colony.
Queens are released in the 100s and most are eaten by birds, or never find a place to nest. A queen collector denies a bird or lizard a meal mostly.

2024-06-16 10:43:03

Exciting ant queen collecting trip in AZ. Why does it feel like all the coolest ants are in the South and South West. It's not fair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV1CkkkKbOM

2024-06-15 22:20:24

"CheeseBro" sounds like a goofy gangster name from batman.
"Cheesebro" "The Ice Man" and "Mr. Mumbles"

2024-06-15 12:12:17

If the Supreme Court tosses out the "obstructing an official procedure" charges for Jan. 6 is that not an invitation to obstruct all of their official procedures forever so they can't make any more rulings?

2024-06-15 10:30:40

The time genie will bring back one (1) extinct animal from any time in all of earth's history. The animal will be integrated into an ecosystem seamlessly with no major negative consequences. You get to pick the creature.
Do you feel obligated to pick something like a sauropod just so people can experience the awe?
Do you bring back something more recent to correct the crimes of mankind?
Or are you selfish and you ask for hell ants so you can finally see how their mandibles work?

2024-06-14 11:44:03

Someone here once told me of how Microsoft had these customers who pay $$$ so a real driving force in the development of Excel are these horrific, unspeakable, monstrosities of spreadsheets critical to the operations of some very serious companies, serious bookkeeping, serious material operations. The elderich horror spreadsheets are decades old, have 100,000s of rows, spaghetti code formulas— Microsoft always checks updates will not harm them. IDK. if it was true: but it *felt* true.

2024-06-14 10:53:23

A student asked me “If I really wanted to do something about climate change & all this injustice do you think I should just try to become a billionaire so I’d have real power? Or should I be a judge so I can make the big decisions? or president? Who has the most power? who can fix it?”
me: Listen if I knew the answer to all that I would tell you. I think it matters what you are good at? What you think you can do well.
student: whatever it is I need to do well I will learn it.

2024-06-14 10:29:49

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Bees are fuzzy sky ants.

2024-06-14 10:24:35

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The bumblebees adore this plant so I think we must have a colony of bumblebees in our courtyard— so many have gathered. They are so frisky and active— wrestling with each blossom— I do wonder if they make things more difficult for themselves with all the hymenopteran fussing.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/614/475/383/852/309/original/a095f55ee21a8436.mp4

2024-06-13 16:40:21

If you see a flower covered in bees for the love of god SMELL IT. If you see this one, Hydrangea quercifolia— get a good huff it’s awesome.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/610/296/677/075/215/original/831594db797a7ab7.png

2024-06-12 14:14:33

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He thought he was buying something that was making him safer from random violence— data don’t support this— but the lies are thick and it’s tempting to think of yourself as an action hero. This is sad. The gun industry and the cultural complex that supports it lied to him; got him killed.

2024-06-12 14:03:13

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Every person who carries a gun thinks this wouldn’t ever be them! (If they didn’t think that they wouldn’t carry the gun)
They will 2nd guess his every decision, from pulling the gun to how he held it, to probably not being willing to use it once the guy grabbed it. None of this matters. Everyone else on that damn bus is traumatized, could have been dead for this “right” —the guns are only as safe as the most clueless person who has one. Everyone must pay. How is that fair.

2024-06-12 13:47:35

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From the article:
Grier was “engaging with passengers” when he got into a fight with one of them, a male, who pulled a gun, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
“Grier took the gun from the passenger and began threatening passengers with it,”

2024-06-12 12:52:53

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Sadly, since it was made by nerds mostly for fun, Mastodon has not been as user friendly or as feature rich as may well have needed to be to grow popular — but there *is* a toe hold here of something worthwhile… I think. And maybe *that* can be grown.
But, whatever happens next, I’m not going to hide in the corner of the internet anymore. I don’t think we can afford to do that.

2024-06-12 12:30:13

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Yay you’re here!

2024-06-11 11:37:28

Artists: if you are doing a commission how do you feel about getting a collage of images from your customer suggestive of the style and poses they want? I always worry about being too controlling or demanding. And I have ambitions of making completing the commission rewarding real creative work for any artists I work with. I’m taking about the world of small commissions in the $100-$300 range where you might get one revision— probably 4 hours of work tops.
What makes a commission enjoyable?

2024-06-10 12:07:05

Anyone have any HS level CS (python or java) project ideas that deal with the Johnson Solids (these are the extended universe fan fic on the Platonic Solids: convex polytopes where every face is a regular polygon— also there are rules to exclude just adding layers of repeated triangles)
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/592/236/385/045/477/original/803cafef971f42ce.png

2024-06-10 08:48:48

Zoe has been making some important content about PragerU's effort to creep into public schools. Her main point is an important one: It's not just that this content comes from an extremist right wing group with extreme views: it's also just not very good. It's all videos and multiple choice questions-- none of it very thoughtful.
But what would you expect? These people don't really like education or think it's important.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLKMW1LII7c

2024-06-09 13:18:15

There is nothing a single person has ever ever ever ever done or will ever ever ever ever do in all of time and space that merits paying them 56 billion dollars—
Madness. Obscenity. Ludicracy

2024-06-08 12:49:51

Im off to the races!! Also? I met this moth. Apantesis phalerata.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/581/076/979/111/143/original/9937483e7507f348.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/112/581/078/233/214/782/original/0d0c0db8ca8a5c9a.png

2024-06-08 10:22:04

“During Jim Crow, the Black family was together,” Donalds explained to the crowd.
Not worthy of freedom; he cannot handle it. Donalds believes this about himself. Without a boot on his neck he would be feral. I will take his word on that. But, he should not presume to speak for all black people.
In our history Black institutions, Black organizations were dismantled & burned. Churches burned. Neighborhoods burned. The less perceptive among us, like Donalds, roped in to cheer it on.