futurebird

mattmcirvin, 3 hours ago

@futurebird I think the thing that makes me so angry about absurd conspiracy theories (especially the science-related ones: Flat Earthers, antivaxxers, young-earth creationists, etc.) is that on the surface, these people are expressing what should be a healthy skepticism of authority, but it's gone wrong somehow. It's just making them believe a far worse authority who says things that are easily refuted, because that person presents as being on their side. They've perverted the whole precious idea of "nullius in verba", that you should see for yourself instead of taking what other people say on faith.

mattmcirvin, 2 hours ago

@DamonWakes @futurebird For instance, one that's gotten a remarkable amount of traction recently is "If heliocentric cosmology were true, we would see different winter and summer constellations--but we don't!" Yes we do, you're just lying and guessing correctly that your fans live in light-polluted zones and are not familiar with the sky.

People actually propagate that one by "just asking questions" on Quora, and the people posting answers get very confused because they assume someone wouldn't be asserting something that blatantly false, and they bend over backwards to interpret the question to make more sense than it does. Maybe it's about circumpolar constellations? Maybe it's about parallax? No, it's just someone repeating a lie.

futurebird, 5 hours ago (edited 4 hours ago)

It's clear that AI can't do even a tenth of what it promises, but they keep grasping that dream of not really needing to have smart people to work with... because the problem with smart people who are good at their jobs, who have bright ideas that make your project even better... the problem with such people is they see themselves as collaborators ... they won't just do the thing, then let you take the credit and then forget about it.

They want to shape the future with you. It's intolerable!

futurebird, 5 hours ago

Remember the old refrain of "workers must be more educated for the modern world" ... it's starting to slip away. I think that's because some people have come to see it as a mistake.

It's really sad to watch. Really disappointing. I guess it's not surprising that some wealthy and powerful people feel threatened by the idea of "the masses" thinking.

But have they forgotten that there is no technological progress without it?

futurebird, 5 hours ago

To be clear. I don't think "workers need to be more educated for the modern world"

I don't care about producing "workers" for anyone. It is a basic human need to know about the world. To ask questions, find answers and (more importantly) to ask questions & find more questions.

To cut people off from this aspect of their humanity is cruel.

If you think people should have "freedoms" that's meaningless if they don't have the information and intellectual tools to make anything of that freedom.

kyleejohnson, 19 hours ago

@stux we call that the falling edge gambit. It decimates the opponent because every piece they move they lose, and none of your pieces even engage.

funkula, 16 hours ago

@JamesDRyan @futurebird I think arctic sirens are probably quite a bit...rounder. Like a leopard seal.

funkula, 15 hours ago

@WhiteCatTamer @JamesDRyan @futurebird

alexwild, 19 hours ago

GBIF only list 19 records of this species in North America, total. I'm about to add 2 more.

https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/map?taxon_key=1579760&gadm_gid=CAN&gadm_gid=USA

And this isn't atypical. For most insect species, almost nothing is known, and too few records exist to even begin tracking their conservation status.

futurebird, 1 day ago

I wonder if she dreams of that bright day when she had wings. When she flew over NYC looking for seat for her empire? I don’t think ant memory works like human memory— (though they do remember AND learn.)

Ants radically reshape their brains to suit each stage of life— the parts of her that knew of flying are probably as gone as her wings—

Maybe she dreams of the feeling of her daughters massing around her in such great numbers that they all feel that impulse to produce new queens & drones.

futurebird, 1 day ago

@elan Sometimes! Though he’s very … youTube influencer styled (which is the only way to make such work a sustainable profession) but I think it harms the quality of the content— he used to make much better but less “viral” videos.

But at least it gets people thinking about ants. So I can’t be a hater.

futurebird, 1 day ago

@bovaz I think people sometimes expect all ants to have dichthadiiform queens like termites. But to have such a large queen means she can’t run while physogastric and certainly can’t fly. So only the species with “army ant syndrome” have those huge fat queens.

futurebird, 1 day ago

She must have been a sight to see flying. Ants are chaotic, awkward flyers… even I can admit they aren’t very good at it. Don’t even tuck in the legs. “landing gear” stays fully splayed for the duration of flight: they don’t know when or where they’ll run into something. You have flying black creature the size/shape of a larger wasp hurtling through the air —legs out: if ants could scream you’d hear a tiny “ahhhhh!” as they went by. (no wonder they tear off the wings with such gusto)

futurebird, 1 day ago (edited 1 day ago)

@wcbdata @bovaz There are so many fun words in myrmecology for “junk in the trunk”

-Repletes (honeypot workers with huge social stomachs)
-Physogastrism (temporary gaster enlargement for laying eggs)
-Dichthadiiform (gastrically enlarged queens who cannot fly)

I feel like there must be more words I’m missing for “fat ants” Consider these camponotus majors who are storing extra fat for winter… rather like repletes but not as extreme.

futurebird, 1 day ago

Some arboreal worker ants of genus Cephalotes are famous for their ability to use their flat bodies to glide when they jump off a tree branch. They are able to glide back to the trunk of the tree so they can more quickly return to their nests in the rainforest canopy.

I wonder if there is any connection between the neural structures required for worker gliding and those for queens flying. Because isn’t flying really just falling with an excess of grace?