myrmepropagandist

pro-ant propaganda, building electronics, writing sci-fi teaching mathematics & CS. I live in NYC.🎖️(<<Medal Awarded for the time when there were too many people.)
Proverbs 6:6

bug haters DNI

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nprofile1qqsvq4q5f4mptqsw4g3j9eut5y8pz8zyyxg9jjptyxa8reg6ju5lgzcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dslvz46u

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Last Notes

2026-06-01 11:05:35 UTC

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@nprofile…t0sx
Should we count piercing mouth parts as stingers? I say "no" ... there is something interesting about creatures that deliver venom NOT with the mouth.

2026-06-01 10:48:48 UTC

Animals that can sting:
Ants, Bees, Wasps, Scorpions, and Jellyfish
If we define a sting as a venom injected *at will* for defense or hunting this ability has evolved multiple times. Cnidarians were first with their stinging cells called nematocysts. I believe the hymenopterans were next?
(are there any other insects that can sting that aren't hymenopterans?)
Should the bite of snakes or the bite of spiders count as a "sting?"

2026-05-31 10:27:12 UTC

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This book breaks it all down and explains why we call the "ant butt" the "gaster" and not the abdomen as you might expect.
And it's not just a silly reason, it helps you to understand how ants and other hymenopterans evolved.
The entry on "abdomen" is two pages long and good thing too!
Excellent book.

2026-05-31 10:25:29 UTC

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For example. Let's say you know a little about insects. You know the insect body has THREE parts: head, thorax and abdomen. You look at an ant and think "I've got this. This is easy."
Ants are always obviously divided into three parts. The first one is the head. But after that? Things get very messy.
The middle part of an ant is NOT a thorax. It's the thorax and part of the abdomen. Basically and abdomens are very strange.

2026-05-31 10:22:12 UTC

"Ants of Africa and Madagascar: a Guide to the Genera" is a really great ant book even if you don't often see African ants. Of course reading about them is fun, but it's a really recent and clearly illustrated and organized book.
It also has the BEST glossary of any ant book in my collection. The "Glossary of Morphological Terms" is like a secret decoder ring for reading scientific papers about ants. The authors assume you know nothing about ants and explain each term from the ground up.

2026-05-25 17:42:46 UTC

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@nprofile…9m6j
Aw... those are garden ants maybe Formica subseria? great ants to have.
Even a degree or two of warmth is very attractive to them since it speeds up the development of their larvae.
Their main nest may be under that nice rock, and they could use the lights as a nursery in the evening.

2026-05-25 10:42:19 UTC

"fandoms" tend to coalesce around works of fiction that are massively popular and that have younger fans. That's probably why there isn't a massive Ian M. Banks (The Culture) fandom. And maybe it's for the best, but I do wish there was more fan art of The Culture.
What smaller or more obscure fictional work do you wish had a big online fandom?

2026-05-22 01:50:03 UTC

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@nprofile…50h6 @nprofile…ss2c
Some countries have laws about collecting some kinds of ants, especially for export. There are also import laws.
You can apply for, and get permits for many things and it's not THAT hard.

2026-05-22 01:44:34 UTC

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@nprofile…ss2c
I joked that the guy who was smuggling all of the ants kept messaging me trying to deal illegal ants to me to a coworker and they didn't think it was a joke...
So I had to explain that no, I do not REALLY know the ant criminal.

2026-05-19 10:44:15 UTC

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Despite living in a "world city" where at least 30 percent of the people speak Spanish it's really hard to learn a second language in the US.
I've told my husband he should pretend he's IDK Swedish or something and only knows a smattering of Chinese so he can get practice, but he is too polite to do this.
"Pretend you don't know English!"
I have a different problem sometimes someone decides that I know Spanish and comes at me at like 9999 mph in some dialect and it's like drowning.

2026-05-19 10:37:09 UTC

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So, if you want to brush up on a language look for experts in something you care about talking fast about that subject in the language you are learning.
It helps to learn the major keywords first. eg "hormigas" "la reina" but then you are good to go. Leverage context!

2026-05-19 10:33:38 UTC

When someone is speaking Spanish I understand about 30 percent of what they are saying. But if it's about ants it goes up to like 60 percent.
Spanish language ant videos have really helped me to improve my listening skills in my poor excuse of a second language.

2026-05-17 03:02:26 UTC

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@nprofile…s0kv
I think the vocals could be?
I don't really know.

2026-05-17 01:50:21 UTC

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This animation is hypnotic in the best ways.
It's like what I think tiktok must be like, but I can never stand tiktok because there is too much AI (I get motion sickness from it) and too many annoying things.
So it's like if tikTok was good?

2026-05-17 01:40:03 UTC

This music video may be "cute" and "funny" but I am trouble by the implied existence of some kind of ... "cat power ring" that can call cats from all over the world to defeat dangerous kaju... even if only dough based.
Should such power be in the hands of cats?
Discuss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH3mYQaSA7I

2026-05-16 09:38:06 UTC

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@nprofile…w9l5
Urban ecology can be a little gross, but all ecologies are gross when you look into it. There is also heroism, great battles and wars are all around you. But you need to tune in to the most common living things in your area first and learn their names and how they live.
By the way this parasitoid wasp? It's a lovely creature. It has dark blue eyes and a waist that'd make a fashion house jealous.
Someone should make a dress based on this wasp. It would win awards.

2026-05-14 21:09:44 UTC

Is there a such thing as a macrophotography trail cam? Like a camera to watch a tiny patch of moss all night at high magnification?

2026-05-14 10:07:42 UTC

I've been depressed about the gutting of the voting rights act but there is a silver lining to it.
The democratic representatives of majority Black districts in the south have been reliable, predictable and stultified. This change offers an opportunity for new alliances.
It's bad, make no mistake, but this is a moment of political change on many levels.
Everyone assumes they know what these new districts will be but ya'll don't know. In that I find some hope.

2026-05-11 14:41:49 UTC

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@nprofile…40zt
“Last month, a Harvard MBA grad named Ben Horwitz launched Sinceerly, an “AI to undo your AI writing.” The Chrome extension has three modes: “Subtle,” “Human,” and “CEO,” which takes AI-generated text and gets rid of em dashes, adds typos, slang, acronyms, puts words all in lowercase…”
I could not tell if this was satire and I was not alone in that.
Should I go on writing stories?
Not really a question worth asking. It’s not like I have a choice.

2026-05-11 14:03:58 UTC

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As if to confirm this, the alien looked sharply up to a regiment of a leaf-cutter ants, each one carrying her green prize like a flag along a slender branch on the margin of the rainforest. To my eye they all looked identical, but the alien trained her holographic recording device on one particular ant.
“This one.” the alien said. “this ant has just cut a perfect portion of the leaf. It has a perfect level of moisture that will exactly match the needs of her colony.” 3/

2026-05-11 14:02:08 UTC

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Seeing my confusion she continued “Our system has shown that somewhere, a few meters from this exact location a moment of peak synchronicity and happiness is … inevitable.”
The alien gazed at me expectedly. I gazed back, stunned to silence.
“It’s not you, is it?” Said the alien.
Slowly, I shook my head “no.”
And of course, I could not be the subject of a moment of “peak happiness” what could be more absurd?
2/

2026-05-11 14:01:27 UTC

A Short Story Inspired by Recent Conversations
“Important Work”
“We are archivists,” the alien explained, “we travel from solar system to solar system searching for events worthy of recording to add to our library.”
“I am responsible for archives of moments of great happiness.” The alien explained, “I seek beings in a perfect state of joy. That is why I have come to earth.” She beamed at me as if this made perfect sense.
1/

2026-05-11 10:30:12 UTC

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I don't think we can really know how much harm we are doing. I think it's good to care. To question "is this OK?"
The study never discusses the ethics of cutting off the legs of ants to see how they navigate. I think it should be discussed.
I kill insects all the time, for the record. I don't think this study was wrong or that it should not have happened. But I arrived at that conclusion after a lot of considerations, observations. I *never* want people to stop asking this question.
4/
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/555/454/350/374/684/original/73beb66680739009.png

2026-05-11 10:20:41 UTC

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I have mixed feelings about the study. The injuries they inflicted on the ants would have shorted their lives. The process of being captured, pinned down under bright lights and a microscope would have been terrifying for the tiny creatures. Every fear response would be maximized. Their world would have been pure terror.
But ants are resilient. Ants would resume their work when released. They would still even bring food back to their nest!
Some people take this as a sign they are automata. 3/

2026-05-11 10:12:20 UTC

In a famous study Matthias Wittlinger, Rüdiger Wehner and Harald Wolf glued stilts on to the legs of some ants, and shortened the legs of other ants by amputating segments of their tarsi. This allowed them to show that ants count the number of steps they take when foraging.
If someone had done a similar study with mice, or people I would hope they would lose their university post and possibly go to prison.
But we don't see insect pain as see vertebrate pain.
1/

2026-05-11 03:00:47 UTC

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@nprofile…zmtw
I can't imagine "the internet" getting boo'd like that in 2001 Grads would have cheered along for "internet"
Or even like bitcoin in say 2010, lots of people were skeptical but would not have just boo'd
This is remarkably unpopular.

2026-05-11 00:34:32 UTC

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@nprofile…6g65
When my foot and leg were broken they put a cast on my foot. My foot became swollen in the cast and started to hurt from being pinched. It was the worst pain of my life. Worse than when my appendix burst, worse than the broken leg.
After SIX HOURS I got them to cut the cast and just sat there crying since the pain had stopped.
But they just didn't understand how much it was hurting. I still don't understand why it was so bad.
I was on some painkillers but it still hurt.

2026-05-11 00:03:32 UTC

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Listen I'm going to start a carrot operation up on the roof and make some BANK.
The only issue is I suspect all of the people with basement pot farms are switching to carrots and other veggies to cash in too... so I'd better hurry.

2026-05-10 23:59:26 UTC

I was joking that my vegetable garden is basically a dude ranch, but if carrots at the grocery at $5 for a bag maybe I *do* need to grow them.
I'm not talking some kind of fancy carrots either. The basic kind.
And a box of cereal costs $7
I think I will just stop eating it's too expensive.

2026-05-10 22:01:10 UTC

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@nprofile…snjr
They just want to know what you eat and when so they can somehow raise the price on it all. Ghouls.

2026-05-10 21:28:08 UTC

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@nprofile…mmp3
"You're absolutely right, turning on the magnetron with the door open was very dangerous and irresponsible. I have updated my instruction set to say 'never ever turn on the magnetron with the door open no matter what' rather than just 'never turn on the magnetron with the door open'"

2026-05-10 21:14:56 UTC

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You can't have any popcorn until you enter the wifi password and download the new firmware.
This is the definition of HELL.

2026-05-10 21:09:16 UTC

AI powered microwave. Everyone must be laughing at this. This is such a joke.
People don't even just the damn popcorn button and that ... kind of works.

2026-05-10 00:19:34 UTC

AI wasn't the "next big thing" ... the market has missed it. Maybe it's not obviously profitable enough. But, there are ideas out there growing that will change the world and only the people close to them even know what they are.
It's not totally possible to just decide that something is going to "change the world." You can fake it for a bit, but eventually reality sets in.
That doesn't mean that nothing is happing. You just might need to listen in different places.

2026-05-09 23:21:21 UTC

We have:
1. Button Knife
2. Tiny 8GB drive
3. Fidget Spinner of Doom
(Just wanted to share some of the odd things I've found recently. Teen me would have put those buttons on EVERYTHING ... you never know!)
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/547/174/143/311/332/original/4e389c336feb209f.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/547/174/335/990/864/original/7f104b1f7421f915.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/547/174/530/421/238/original/97410fdb9806e74a.png

2026-05-09 18:27:10 UTC

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@nprofile…a0rz
Every pest control website (ok not "every" but damn near most of them) will use a photo of some other ant for their "fire ant" because they just don't look very menacing with their simple wide set eyes.

2026-05-09 13:10:10 UTC

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The harder the cheese the more water you will need.
1. Blend 1 part corn starch to 4 parts water by volume (you can eyeball this, you are making milk-like liquid)
2. pulverize or grate the cheese, heat in a dish with low heat and slowly VERY SLOWLY add the corn starch water and mix it well as you go.
3. Once you have blended in the corn starch water and the sauce is runny turn up the heat and let it bubble.
4. It will get thick and be ready to serve!

2026-05-09 13:06:59 UTC

Cheese Sauce can seem like a complex and advanced food, it will impress your friends. But, it turns out it's very simple to make.
When you try to melt most cheeses they will become more like a liquid, but the fat will separate making a lumpy texture, and when it cools it will harden. To prevent this you need corn starch.
Mix the corn starch with water and slowly blend it into the melting cheese. Add more water than you think!

2026-05-08 23:26:18 UTC

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Queen update! Her eggs have hatched and are now larvae. She will feed them “trophic egg” which are eggs that cannot hatch.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/541/537/798/040/623/original/e320b94999211dd2.png

2026-05-08 15:08:35 UTC

walking by the courthouse this morning it was delightful to see the happy brides and grooms just married. Friday is the most popular day for courthouse weddings I am actually working in the Merrick office is an exciting and interesting job. What would it be like to see so many different people at that particular junction in their life?

2026-05-08 10:05:04 UTC

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The math teachers at the HS had developed all of this wonderful material for teaching. But it's all in Word and Google docs. I've learned to work with it, and I've taught a few people a little LaTeX.
After the rough first months people stopped being intimidated and now we all get on great.
I still dream of getting all those documents converted, though...
someday...

2026-05-07 12:15:12 UTC

Prototaxites keeps me up at night. Think of them towering 3-5m tall, enigmatic finger-like forms, they defined the landscapes of the early Devonian.
And that is why I find the prototaxites so unsettling: for despite their obvious success, their ubiquity in the fossil record, there is nothing quite like them around today. There is nothing even close.
1/

2026-05-07 10:17:51 UTC

A student solves a problem. Their diagram doesn't match the situation described. Even working with that diagram, their application of trig functions is incorrect. The algebra contains more errors in arithmetic and logic.
But, after a half page of equations and numbers and diagrams they have the correct answer.
Out of ten points how many would they receive?
From me? 3/10
Knowing that a problem requires a diagram, trig, a numerical answer with the right units shows some understanding.

2026-05-07 09:36:43 UTC

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@nprofile…55vq
All of this handwringing about conciseness is ultimately about morality. Should you feel bad about crushing a bug? How bad should you feel?
Destroying beautiful things, destroying complex things, especially complex things that you don't understand strikes me as significant.
It's why you feel something when you see a mandala erased from the sand. It's why that erasure is incorporated into the tradition.
Sweeping the floor is not the same if there is a mandala.

2026-05-06 09:45:40 UTC

Griffin of "Bugs and Biology" just had the experience that makes so many people reconsider ants:
It is the moment when you are observing a colony of ants and realize that the colony is observing YOU right back. They colony is trying to analyze and classify YOU. The colony has plans for YOU.
It can be a chilling experience and bull ants do it better than any ants since they watch large vertebrates.
They manage large vertebrates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIl5zKywM-Y

2026-05-05 19:28:37 UTC

People think of the ocean as an amorphous mass, but it is also a great sorter of objects, particularly the plastic floatsome New York City‘s little contribution to the many oceanic garbage patches. From my kayak I have seen some very strange things. There is, for example a beach on an uninhabited island just north of the city that is completely covered in plastic tampon applicators. Something about the motion of the waters has all sorted them to this 16 m wide space. 1/

2026-05-05 01:51:57 UTC

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Get it? "early projections"
I'll be here all night.
😃

2026-05-05 01:46:58 UTC

There have been a lot of people who thought that educational films would replace teaching. You could just have a whole series of film reels and put them in the projector and BOOM education.
Did educators reject movies? Not really. I think most teachers will show a video clip if it's helpful.
But, it kind of shocking how little the technology of film is used in education compared to some of the early projections.

2026-05-05 01:36:05 UTC

There are 22,000 species of ants.
It's going to take 60 years, but I'm not stopping.
(Please do not think to much about how that's only the number of described ants, and how that number keeps going up and old ants keep getting revised. )

2026-05-04 09:59:44 UTC

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These are real american news infographics with real american units of measure.
They have taken us for absolute fools!
(This is paraphrasing an ancient meme. Bless be if you know, you are an old one too then.)

2026-05-04 01:53:31 UTC

People make fun of Americans and our units, but this is a real infographic about hail size from a news station.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/513/804/346/915/931/original/751c3b0af8ce7415.png

2026-05-04 01:34:26 UTC

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@nprofile…38y0 @nprofile…qdtq @nprofile…vyk4
Ants really lean into the whole "I hardly worth eating, made mostly of parts to sting and bite and you'll get beat up by my sisters if you do" strat a lot.
It's why there are so many creatures that mimic ants. Most things leave ants alone. (with notable exceptions, but even anteaters are going for the larvae not the adults.)

2026-05-04 01:30:29 UTC

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@nprofile…38y0 @nprofile…qdtq @nprofile…vyk4
Larger ants don't often attack smaller ants since they could get swarmed.
Ants that feed on other ants tend to do "nest raids" taking eggs and larvae which have many more calories than adult ants.

2026-05-04 00:48:51 UTC

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@nprofile…evvn @nprofile…a8rk
I think my grandpa read me this book or something similar. I have this constant and unexplained worry at all times that a big catfish might eat me.

2026-05-04 00:43:44 UTC

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@nprofile…vyk4
Ant can already ride other ants.
Ant size range is wild.
This is an "acron ant" (temnothorax) and a carpenter ant. These aren't even the largest and smallest ants, just two ants you can find in Eastern Europe who can meet like this in the wild.
Remarkable photo by Bakos Ádám
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/513/520/514/207/854/original/31efd15c125a9aa0.png

2026-05-04 00:33:09 UTC

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@nprofile…a8rk
"Ol Jimmy Gum-Mouth, the school-bus sized catfish eats someone every summer. He eats you in one gulp. They say the water won't even ripple. Only comes out when the lake is still as glass and the fog is hanging low... But the town council has been covering up to not scare the tourists."

2026-05-04 00:30:43 UTC

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@nprofile…vyk4
This would be more terrifying in a way. What does it mean if you can see a water bear with a simple magnifying glass? What else is larger and by how much?!?

2026-05-03 23:56:57 UTC

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I'm a huge fan of any cryptid that is simply a very large fish. Especially if it has a name.

2026-05-03 23:54:53 UTC

Most places with a cryptid try to make it make a little sense. "Well, you see there are these primates from the last Ice Age and ... " or " ... this lake is very old and catfish never stop growing so you can't rule out that one is the size of bus..."
But not NJ. "There is a devil in the woods. It's gonna get you."
"so... how did it get there? what's the deal?"
"... it's the devil."

2026-05-03 23:12:27 UTC

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@nprofile…dzk4
I don't think "giant ----" tends to work out well in general. Perhaps this is the real lesson.
Personally I think simply fox-sized ants would be more interesting. They wouldn't try to eat people unless desperate. We could learn to live with them.

2026-05-03 22:20:03 UTC

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I would like to submit that giant woodpeckers would be much more terrifying than giant ants. They can fly and would find pulling people out of building to eat very similar to searching for grubs.
Really a giant ant eater in the real terror.

2026-05-03 22:17:53 UTC

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So cattle ranches and people would be targets in the summer, and sugar syrup producing places would be targets year round.
The ants would also need a lot of fresh clean water and places to build nests. Honestly taking over the drain tunnels in LA made a lot of sense.
Could such large ants dig underground nests? It might be difficult.
People would be just the size of fruit flies. It's not looking good for us.
2/2

2026-05-03 22:13:05 UTC

So, let's consider the ants from Them. What would giant ants really be like?
They would be incredibly hungry. During the summer an adult ant can eat half an fruit fly per day. Ant can simply stay still and use much less food, but if it's summer they'll want to increase their numbers and feed not just themselves but their larvae so they can raise more ants and have a nuptial flight to start more colonies.
Adult ants can do rather well on sugars, but the young need protein.
1/

2026-05-03 12:41:57 UTC

One day I'll a pot without a typo, missing word or letter.
😔

2026-05-03 12:25:03 UTC

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@nprofile…nw2r
That pun got me good that's all I mean. :)

2026-05-03 12:21:10 UTC

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@nprofile…nw2r
I'm so angry right now and there is nothing I can do about it.

2026-05-03 10:43:40 UTC

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This isn't the US pulling back and taking care of her own. It's a more aggressive kind of interventionism.
Right now many conservatives are trying to position themselves as isolationists. There is one easy way to tell if they are sincere.
Did they support the Iraq war? If they did they are lying.
Could there be a common cause here between left and right to end war?
That is what some people thought about Trump.
Don't fall for it again. 3/3

2026-05-03 10:08:59 UTC

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Part of why I find not being able to tells these ants apart easily so galling is they aren't even from the same genus!
Anyone can get confused by species, but I have been trying to learn all of the major genuses of ants.
Not knowing "Lasius" from "Formica" feels like a big error.
And in many contexts there is enough of a difference in size that there isn't much of an issue.
I'm starting to wonder if there is something like a little Müllerian mimicry at play.

2026-05-03 10:02:45 UTC

Ain't that the truth, Brother!
Earlier I was trying to help @nprofile…u8zu determine if the read and black ant they'd found was Lasius emarginatus, an ant I post about often as it's causing a big comotion in NYC as an invasive as of late.
But phryk is in Europe in their native range.
I felt so happy that one could simply look for ocelli to distinguish Lasius emarginatus from Formica sp.
But it's not that simple. Lasius emarginatus don't lack ocelli they are just *greatly* reduced.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/510/043/337/307/233/original/f47810963a0ba99f.png

2026-05-03 01:08:34 UTC

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@nprofile…86zs
what kind of lawsuits? 👀

2026-05-03 01:06:45 UTC

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@nprofile…0q5y
This is wild. I think I'd heard of it before, but the fact that it can arise so quickly suggests that it might have played a role in other parts of earth's history.
Now if this could be an organelle in a cell and you looked at some of the animal and plant cells that deal better with vacuum you might have a template for space life. (Well it couldn't live in vacuum, but maybe in an air or fluid pocket of a space rock?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosynthesis_(metabolism)

2026-05-02 18:37:03 UTC

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Here is an example of a species key.
https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Key_to_species_of_the_Camponotus_dimorphus-group

2026-05-02 18:36:28 UTC

... As I've been studying ants I've discovered these wonderful documents call "species keys" basically it's a choose your own adventure that helps you identify species of ants. (and other creatures too, I'd assume)
The best keys have comparison photos and references for each step.
A species key could be for a particular region or for a particular genus of ant.
I wish I could merge them or filter them by location.
Is there a SKP? (Species Key Protocol) a format that could be processed?

2026-05-02 16:49:32 UTC

One more antkeeping fact: Tap water is mostly fine for pet ants, although with rare ants there might be some exceptions.
It's best to allow water for ants to "de-gass" (just let it sit for a few hours to a day) this seems to make it more appealing to ants.
You should probably allow the water YOU drink to degass too as it tastes a bit better.

2026-05-02 14:35:23 UTC

Your mandatory #caturday #picathecat post. From Pica to you.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/505/471/244/700/504/original/0319bdfa9ea74d0a.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/505/471/553/818/512/original/1ccfcb5736dbf97b.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/505/472/070/405/398/original/41ee8c9e18efe94f.png

2026-05-02 13:35:46 UTC

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Quick update on my new queen carpenter ant: she seems to be doing well living in her glass test tube inside of my pen drawer. I checked on her today and gave her a drop of water which she accepted and drank. Her eggs are slowly developing.
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/505/235/893/034/127/original/22f98a58d1dcda2d.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/505/236/137/195/120/original/668ce02908c792c9.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/505/236/503/359/248/original/4db829b2376fd42c.png
https://cdn.masto.host/sauropodswin/media_attachments/files/116/505/236/786/862/393/original/88bfe75b28474092.png

2026-05-02 13:00:24 UTC

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With oil prices under pressure again some airlines are cutting shorter flights. In the US these flights serve real need that would be better met by trains, but that is a long term project.
Air travel, despite obvious harms is heavily subsidized and regulated in many ways. The budget airline "Spirit" has been in the news and may get a bailout. No one is talking about reducing private jets.
2/

2026-05-02 12:56:41 UTC

Let's talk about airplanes and flying with some polls. Air travel can open whole new possibilities and allow people to learn about the world. It can connect far flung families. It's also terrible for the environment and expensive.
The super wealthy use private jets increasing the impact of their travel. In politics the specter of annoying environmentalists tell you you can't travel, or taxing you if you do is used to fear-monger and protect the people in the private jets.
1/

2026-05-02 11:52:04 UTC

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There is nothing "mysterious" about stealing slices of ham.

2026-05-02 11:51:08 UTC

This whole "cats are mysterious" notion is pure cat propaganda.

2026-05-02 10:44:01 UTC

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I started calling around and reached a TNR group who said they might help. I didn't do much more than that (well I adopted Pica) but over the past 18 years cats were trapped and fixed and trapped and fixed.
I wondered if it'd work. It seemed like new cats just showed up to fill the gaps.
The bodega cats were fixed too.
I just noticed that I have not seen a stray cat in a year. There isn't a colony at the garden anymore.
TNR *can* work. But it takes time. And a city wide effort. 2/

2026-05-02 10:41:10 UTC

When I moved to this neighborhood 18 years ago there were a lot of stray cats. They lived in the community garden and the park. Some of the bodegas kept mousers (ratters??? this is NYC) but they often were not fixed.
Right after we moved in a whole little of kittens showed up in our court yard and they would follow anyone entering or leaving the building in a little swarm.
Six kittens:
One black.
One white.
One orange.
One gray.
And the tabby (Pica)
1/

2026-05-01 20:29:29 UTC

Ants are the best wasps.

2026-05-01 11:54:50 UTC

I am becoming lactose intolerant and all the vegans, who have been right all along are LAUGHING at me.
I really love the taste of milk and it's sad but maybe it is for the best if it's a bizarre treat from now on. It was never a sensible food. I'm not fighting on that point.

2026-05-01 10:21:51 UTC

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Because let's be real, if you posted "It's a lovely day." on an internet forum you might get a response like "No it's not, noob."
LLMs are heavily weighted to give supportive, and constructive responses.
I wonder what they might be like without these limitations? Without the limitation to make the response from another user they might be much less deceptive.
That they are popular shows that many people just want a nice moderated online community where people treat each other with respect.

2026-05-01 10:18:42 UTC

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For example if I give an LLM without user seperation this text:
"It's a lovely day." It might continue with "The sun was shining."
But with user separation it focuses on responses to "it was a lovely day" from other users and the training data might suggest "I agree, it's wonderful weather."
So interaction with an LLM is like posting on a forum, it gives you and average of typical responses with one small change: most LLMs have a strong positivity bias programmed in.

2026-05-01 10:15:38 UTC

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Thus the training data didn't just contain text, but rather text where each passage is tagged and attributed to a particular user.
This aspect of the training data was critical in creating the illusion of talking to another person.
An LLM doesn't just predict the next text. It predicts the next text that might come from another user. You need to hard code this in to make it work well.
Leave it out and there is no conversation.

2026-05-01 10:13:17 UTC

People get mad when you call LLMs "spicy autocomplete" but my investigations into recreating and implementing small versions of this tech make me think that nick name is very accurate.
Basically, it's a method to predict the next content in a text file. The whole conversation between you and the LLM is one file, and the LLM tries to find the most likely next text based on the training data.
There is something significant here: LLMs were trained on internet forums and social media.

2026-05-01 02:54:05 UTC

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Part of the point of these methods of attracting ants is that the plant feeds the ants just enough to keep them around. The ants can easily stock pile a ton of food, but know there will be more in hours or a day.
By rationing the plant encourages the ants to hang around and defend the tree as their territory.
Aphids are doing something similar.
I wonder if bees ever also help flowering plants by scaring herbivores? Pollination is great, but could there be more to the story?

2026-05-01 02:51:39 UTC

Some acacia trees produce little energy/protein bars for ants. They grow out of the tips of the leaves and plants offer them to get aggressive ants to live in the tree which protects it from herbivores. These are called beltian bodies. In other plants similar ant snacks grow on the surface of leaves called pearl bodies. Many plants have little drinking stations for nectar for ants called extra-floral nectaries.
Plants cater to bees with flowers and ants with snack bars and drink stations.

2026-04-30 23:25:15 UTC

"retro ratchet wing nut" might be hardware but is sounds like an annoying politician or the worse kind of Star Wars fan

2026-04-30 19:42:54 UTC

so many birds have lewd rude little names and I'm not buying that this isn't on purpose.

2026-04-30 18:44:27 UTC

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my favorite chapter is the one in which he explains the process of excavating a Florida harvester ant nest layer by layer. He describes the nest from ant’s eye view. It’s simply amazing.

2026-04-30 18:43:09 UTC

“Ant Architecture: The Wonder, Beauty, and Science of Underground Nests” by Walter R. Tschinkel there’s a book filled with excellent illustrations charts and photographs of casts of the underground nests of ants various species. For this reason I ignored the audiobook. This was a mistake. The audiobook is also excellent and for someone like me who is easily distracted by flashy photos of ants in the audiobook helped me to focus on the text which includes extensive descriptions of the nests.

2026-04-30 14:01:41 UTC

Sometimes it’s good for me to read a bit of an SF book that I don’t enjoy as much. Always studying my favorite authors who are more experienced and can craft stories in ways that I have not worked out yet is inspiring. But it’s also good to read something that makes me think “I can do this. Hell. I can do better”

2026-04-30 10:43:53 UTC

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@nprofile…08k0
I think that's a great point.
However, with a system of that size it's not like there is a little save file you can load again. Destroying it really is destroying something forever that you can't get back due to the size.

2026-04-30 10:34:28 UTC

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OK, making a simulation like that where you model every bit of matter in the brain of a cat is probably beyond our understanding of matter and more to the point it's slow and will take too many computers to run.
Simulations are supposed to be smaller simplified versions of the real things they represent.
You could probably simplify the model. Remove bits and replace them with simplified modules that have the same results 99.9 percent of the time.

2026-04-30 10:31:45 UTC

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And I will follow that with: destroying the simulation carries similar moral weight to killing a cat.

2026-04-30 10:30:48 UTC

This is not what the people who say the word AI right now are doing at all. But let's consider a one-to-one physics based simulation of the brain of a cat.
It couldn't run in real time like a living cat. It would be very slow, but you could give it reasonable inputs and get responses similar to how a cat might react (the only reason not to do a human mind is size, this is going to take so much computing to do very little)
Is it conscious like a cat?
I lean on a hard YES.

2026-04-30 01:24:16 UTC

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@nprofile…0q2l
When an ant wants another ant to stop doing something or come look at something and she isn't listening the most extreme form of ant persuasion is bodily transportation. Pick up your sister who is digging in the wrong place (in your opinion) and move her to the right place.
Every ant could do this, though older foragers tend to do it more than most.
The queen often gets moved in this way since she is often too scared to move to a new nest on her own. But the workers just carry her.