Notices by myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)

@jaredwhite

If they are getting lots of new users will they need more support? I admit I don't know how their server costs for all those images are managed?

I ask because I think we could be proactive in this.

@dillyd

"Do you want to come to church on Sunday?"
"What kind of church? Do you have ants?"

go with that one next time, on me!

@dillyd

To really sell it memorize Proverbs 6:6-8, if they are confused just start talking about how the Bible literally says that ants are wise and everyone should look to them as examples.

Ever have honey so good you start worrying you might mature into a queen bee if you eat too much?

@davep

I'm glad that people don't get weird about honey like they do about wine (because it'd drive up the prices) but I also don't understand why that hasn't happened.

Some honey tastes like particular places. You can time travel and distance travel to various meadows, fruit farms, gardens, and groves of trees... and even with the same flowers each little area is distinct.

It ought to be possible to taste honey and drop a pin on the map at the origin.

One of my students unironically described nursery rhyme music as "lo fi childhood beats"

and I wanted to correct them... but couldn't think of WHY so I did not.

Another technology that was supposed to change the world was speech to text. The idea was that everyone would be writing so much more because you just needed to talk, and isn't that easier than typing.

I've even tried this. It's not that great. It's really hard, as it turns out, to speak like the written word.

Even when I'd get most of full short story down the editing was a nightmare.

I wonder if anyone writes by dictation? Some people must. But I suspect it takes practice.

@pre

No one will explain to me what is wrong with improving the UI, web-wide integration and support for the fedi instead where we already have a rather large talented, interesting (and good looking!) group of users being very social 24/7 ... what does this do that we don't already have? The only thing I can think of are "big names" and that can matter. But, why not just improve the big project everyone is already doing?

In particular making noun plural when talking about a category in general eg:

"Birds can fly" vs. "Bird can fly"

Only if you are talking about a set of particular multiple bird does it sound best to make it plural.

"There are three birds. Bird are majestic animal."

It just seems like you have to add "s" way to often and it is exhausting.

I often struggle to read the last chapter of good fiction books. I will read an 800 page book, stop before the last 20 pages. I was musing on this habit and did a search finding a similar person on Quora. Quora has implemented AI responses. The AI response treats my personality quirk like a problem to be corrected: “If you find this pattern troubling .. Sometimes, simply acknowledging these feelings can help you push through…”
A younger version of myself would have taken this advice seriously.

@3janeTA

I think I just really enjoy thinking about “what happens next” and reading the ending closes that door in some ways. And if I really love a book the way it ends could ruin it, it is unlikely that the ending will make me like it more.

Also endings are stressful to read— authors make grand and sudden things happen that can shatter the realism of the world or make me shudder and cringe at how forced and contrived they feel. So, by not reading the end I can avoid it.

I'm sick of making noun plural. Noun sound better when you don't bother I think.

Do you ever think about pelicans and get really scared. (They are kind of scary) but then remember the pterosaurs were real animals?

(Second image via: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/pterosaurs-weirdest-wonders-on-wings)

With close cousins we could imagine some process to match neuron to neuron and project some of the patterns of electrical activity from one mind to another. (Although the variation in function of just human minds makes this idea limited.) Perhaps, rather than trying to find analogous structures, we should just expand our minds. Continue to think with our own bodies but then expand our awareness to include the other. (and do we notice that in doing this, their minds incorporate ours?)

"Endoskeletons are best!"
"Exoskeletons are best!"

(image via "fossilguy" https://www.fossilguy.com/gallery/vert/placoderm/dunkleosteus/index.htm)

@mark

Think of all of the horrible scraping sounds in the Devonian seas!

When we ask if other creatures are “conscious” what I think we really want to know is this impossible question of what it would feel like to be a cat or a barnacle (or an eagle wheeling on a warm swell of air above our cities.) We can, to some degree, imagine what it might be like to inhabit the bodies of other living things, but to experience their minds? That is another matter.

@aethrvmn @FediThing @elsantonegro

It kind of makes me tired all of the talk on here about defederating with this or that server, but no server is "off the table" for such treatment. And that is a good thing. Every server has a bit of power and room to decide what they will and will not tolerate.

And the conversation is exhausting, but it's the natural friction needed to create spaces where people can work and play safely. So in the end it's good.

With such a primate server... well.

If your older cat has grown thin with age, and seems to eat a lot for their small frame consider seeing a vet. The tests will cost maybe $160 and the medicine, should it be the same problem Pica has, only costs $10 a month.

The difference is HUGE if your cat has this problem.

@dalias @llewelly @kechpaja

Could one design a box that could be clamped over a small creature and it would do the lighting and photos from all angles all in one go?

Or a box one could drop an insect into that would do such a multi-angle, perfectly lighted scan?

When I'm doing wild ant photography I tend to set up some bait and light it well, then hope the ants move into focus.