myrmepropagandist

Whenever I see an ant running down the sidewalk in NYC (and they were out just two days ago when it was unseasonably warm for a bit) I think "get that bag, girls!"

Every ant that I saw taking advantage of the warm winter day was Lasius emarginatus AKA "the manhatant" ... this kind of […]

@kumarvibe

Antkeeping is huge in China... and there are lot of sus "exotic pet trade" type sellers around.

The ants being in "test tubes" is normal. That's how you keep young queens. There is no need to import ants from such a long distance and it's good that Kenya is cracking down on this.

OMG

I suppose this would be obvious to some of you but I just realized this is why they think it’s so “easy” to cut a government budget.

They assume someone somewhere must be eating lobster and then cut that.

Poor Elon.

Some of the Lesser US War Department Budget Items Included:
Lobster Tails $7,000,000
King Crab $2,000,000

After the meals, the table is always a mess with these kinds of foods. There is something more visceral eating an animal that you need to tear apart with your hands. The warriors must feast […]

@dilmandila

IDK if everyone feels this way about what they want to call the nonfiction... but I'm glad some people do.

Writing non-fiction is such a pain! Yet very necessary. Just spent almost two weeks on an article less than 3k words, which I easily output in one sitting if its fiction, yet I most likely won't get paid. The amount of time taken to cite other works to support your argument is just insane. You […]

@thejessiekirk

Absolutely.

I love trains, and computers, I love technology and it is easy to see technology as innocent or at least neutral, but that is not always the role that it plays.

That was always "the point" of Different Trains for me. Here are these romantic sounds, the train whistles in the night. The power to […]

I can't listen to "Different Trains" right now, it feels a bit to detached and superior to the practical atrocities that are right in front of us? As music it's a reflection on the past, and I just don't feel like I have the foundation to "reflect."

Which only makes me think it is a remarkable […]

I have a playlist of "classical mix" for studying and Different Trains came on.

I had to turn it off.

I've listened to Steve Reich's piece many dozens of times and contemplated the source of the sound samples. I've wondered if you can hear any difference in the whistles.

But a voice whispered […]

Competent and effective bureaucrats have existed. In a way, some of the most popular media in the US is a fantasy about the justice system being an *effective bureaucracy* filled with people devoted to the ideals of their job over profit, or personal interest.

It doesn't matter if you want to […]

A good video game creates a world and set of rules that are fun and worth knowing. Those rules can tell a story, they can have implicit meaning. But to really play with the game you want to try to do things that test the limits of your knowledge of the world.

"You shouldn't sell your fish until […]

A great example is #stardewvalley which has a very active speed running and challenge community and culture.

How fast can you get married?

How fast can you make and drink mayonnaise?

All of these runs break all of the relationships and stories of the game into columns in spreadsheets and make […]

Someone brought up the old Roger Ebert essay where he said that video games can't be art and I've been thinking about it. Naturally I think he kind of misses the mark. Video games will never ever be ... movies. And that's fine. That's good. You watch a movie, you play a game.

So much of the way […]

Zachary Cohen posing on X.com @ZcohenCNN The Navy has yet to escort an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. official tells me AFTER Trump's energy secretary posted, then deleted, that naval assets had escorted an oil tanker through the contested waterway. “The U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets,” Chris Wright wrote on X without providing additional details. The message was deleted a few minutes later.

Why can't someone just tell me about one of these things before it happens so I could get in on the rug pull and make some money with the rest of ya'll just once?

It's not fair. They keep using tweets like this to make the market jump and wiggle and all of us […]

[Original post on sauropods.win]

Euler? I hardly know her!

#badJokes #shortJokes #mathJokes #groaners

eggrolls? Obviously.

#badJokes #shortJokes #groaners

[Won't Rule Out the Draft]

We still have a draft in America and it's called "College Costs Too Much" this reliably sends the children of the middle and working class into "military careers"

Why I have a cousin who has done very well for herself as a Navy nurse. You know, so she could pay for […]

[Won't Rule Out the Draft]

All of this is so transparent to me it's giving me anxiety.

[Won't Rule Out the Draft]

To produce the political will to have a war on that scale and a draft there would probably need to be a serious terror attack on the US.

Though I wonder, if 9/11 happened today would the same people who rallied to the US and felt bad for us do the same. Or would much […]

[Won't Rule Out the Draft]

When asked about the possibility of a draft Karoline Leavitt our White House Press Secretary gave an odd answer.

"It is not part of the current plan right now but the president again wisely keeps his options on the table."

Our president was given a medical deferment […]

[Question about Excession by Iain M. Banks]

I'm reading it for a second time, and on my first reading I was more focused on the space and war story than the stuff about the tower and problem of being alone with the wrong person.

[Question about Excession by Iain M. Banks]

"I'm not really eccentric I'm on a secret war mission" sounds like something a ship in need of lots of therapy might say. Even if there really is a secret war mission.

IDK. Thoughts on this part of the story from any others who have read it recently?

[Question about Excession by Iain M. Banks]

spoilers

I've always been a bit confused by the infinite pregnancy relationship plot in this book.

In retrospect it seems like a terrible idea to send Byr Genar-Hofoen, and Dajeil Gelian off to a remote research outpost together. The Sleeper admits […]

In a few years my husband wants to go to China. We've been before to the big cities which are amazing but we'd like to go to one of the dozens of cities in China with millions of people most people in the west know very little about.

I'd like to go to see ancient invertebrates. Is there […]

"For in the parts where they live it is desert on account of the sand; and in this desert and sandy tract are produced ants, which are in size smaller than dogs but larger than foxes,"

- Herodotus

I'm so mad the fox-sized ants weren't real I'll never forgive him for this.

The real story of ant garnets should not be confused with the "Gold-digging ants" that Herodotus went on about these were probably not even ants.

If you give your beloved an ant garnet your love will last 1000 years.

(OK that last bit was made up, but I can't think of a more romantic stone)

Ant Fact of the Day:

"Ant Garnets" are tiny red gems found by ants. I know this sounds made up ... but it's real.

Harvester ants dig deep nests (up to 6m!) and they bring the soil to the surface grain by grain. Sometimes they find garnets, tiny precious red gemstones.

These are waste to the […]

@DemocracyMattersALot

“I'm proud to have had the words 'CBS correspondent' next to my name – always will be."

(unsaid: because I got out now)

A very cordial burn, like a sunburn you don’t notice for a day or so— but then the skin peels off.