RE: https://mstdn.social/@Remittancegirl/117353960567676618
"Language models manipulate form, but without reference to meaning. " -- Professor of Linguistics Emily Bender
An excellent example of Emily Bender's quote, from the world of pottery:
RE: https://alaskan.social/@AlaskaWx/117219575190167521
wow, look at that heat anomoly centered on the Gulf of Ob, in northern Russia. A place also famous for so many oil and gas production sites.
"The timing of the use of the name Dolly for this storm is purely
coincidental. Tropical storm and hurricane names for the North
Atlantic Basin originate from six pre-determined rotating lists
established by the World Meteorological Organization Region IV
Hurricane Committee. The name Dolly replaced Diana after the
1990 hurricane season and was first used in 1996."
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT4+shtml/271449.shtml
well, I knew that, but still, too soon.
oh good, arthro-pod is finally doing an episode on fire ants!
on second listen, I've decided to tag
@futurebird , even though its main focus is on two ants as invasive species.
RE: https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/116887168772437561
birders did this. They took the US-Mexico border and enshrined it as if it were a holy biological fact of the world, when they knew damn well every bird shat on that border. They knew it was evil and dishonest to use borders for distribution maps, and they embraced evil knowingly. In so doing, birders did far more damage to conservation than all the cats that ever lived could ever do. Birders are worse than cats, and what is more, birders understood, and willfully chose to be worse than cats.
"For me, the most ironic token
of that moment in history [the
first human moon landing] is the
plaque signed by President
Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11
took to the moon. It reads, "We
came in peace for all Mankind."
As the United States was
dropping seven and a half
megatons of conventional
explosives on small nations in
Southeast Asia, we congratulated
ourselves on our humanity. We
would harm no one on a lifeless
rock."
-- Carl Sagan,
Pale Blue Dot, pg 169
RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116258677474446258
elon musk, he promised Mars,
but then washed out the very stars
with no stars in the sky to see,
who would care, who would believe?
who would dream of Mars,
beneath a sky without stars?
RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/116199504927810945
from one perspective, this is true, but from a different perspective, at the same time, calling "AI" skills "just documentation" is also a cruel and horrible insult to all good documentation and everyone who ever tried to write good docs ...
everyone has heard of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, a joke made up for a poorly-thought out survey of what 1990s people believed on the internet, but somehow nobody has heard of the Mangrove Jingle Shell Clam, a real and amazing animal I learned about from @KateShaw
hopefully Dr. Dan Killam @dantheclamman can provide us all with more information on this animal.
https://strangeanimalspodcast.blubrry.net/2023/07/24/episode-338-updates-6-and-an-arboreal-clam/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigmonia
duck tape, bailing wire, and human blood holds together
@futurebird @KateShaw
(Beebe seems not to have known that army ants normally carry their brood with them, and so the larvae didn't indicate they were searching for a nest. Historical issues aside, it's still neat. )
@futurebird
@KateShaw
look at this neat historical observation, from more than a century ago!
"... , including the larvae of the Painted Nest Wasplets. For an hour at noon during heavy rain, the column weakened and almost disappeared, but when the sun returned, the lines rejoined, and the revolution of the vicious circle continued ..."
-- William Beebe, _Edge of the Jungle_
https://archive.org/details/edgeofjungle00beeb/page/290/mode/2up
2/3
"— to the outhouse again, and on a large fallen log, a few feet beyond the spot where their nest had been, the ends of the circle actually came together! It was the most astonishing thing, and I had to Verify it again and again before I could believe the evidence of my eyes. It was a strong column, six lines wide in many places, and the ants fully believed that they were on their way to a new home, for most were carrying eggs or larvae, although many had food ..."
1/3
"At six o'clock the following morning I started out for a swim, when at the foot of the laboratory steps I saw a swiftly-moving, broad line of army ants on safari, passing through the compound to the beach. I traced them back under the servants' quarters, through two clumps of bamboos to the out -house. Later I followed along the column down to the river sand, through a dense mass of underbrush, through a hollow log, up the bank, back through light jungle —"
#ants
#Beebe
the crepuscular rays
were cast in dusty, dusty greys
and I suppose
the Sun came up the same
though I did not stay
I left
when still it lurked
beyond the shadowy silhouette
of a mountain range
The Helpless Perplexity of Volition would have been a great band name.
he felt great disturbants in the force.
what if the rapture happened 66 million years ago and everything alive today is descended from the left behind?