whetstone

@whetstone@romancelandia.club

I am curious about basically everything but in particular animals, finance, fashion, art, calligraphy, politics, cocktail recipes, cooking, paleography, languages, gardening. #tfr.

Fiction: fantasy, sf, period romance (particularly non-European).

Non-fiction runs the gamut.

投稿はほとんど英語になると思いますが、（左翼の）政治とアートと日米関係に興味のある方を是非フォローしたいです。

Boulder, CO / NYC

https://romancelandia.club/@whetstone on Twitter, but not really there nowadays. She/her, or whatever you like.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

lauren, to random
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

Every time Gov. Ron DeSantis smiles he triggers the "uncanny valley" effect -- and he's (presumably) not even a robot.

whetstone,

@lauren Yes. The human side of the uncanny valley is definitely a thing. I have the same problem with Lillian Gish.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Witness with your own eyes the unspeakable horror that is a lacewing sucking aphids dry like juice boxes and sticking their empty husks on their back. Very disturbing video unless you really really hate aphids for some reason.

Monsters are real.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pdbffdioe8

whetstone,

@futurebird What's with the "putting the carcasses on their back" behavior? Didn't look like there was much left in the juice box....

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

During the lockdown days one of my happy discoveries were old natural history books filled with nonsense. Sometimes well-meaning factual errors, at other times sensationalism. ("The army ants of South America can clean the bones of a living calf to a polish in but a few hours!")

I ran in to this book plate being sold on etsy and it has the feeling of "old natural history book nonsense."

But it could also be a displaced colony, perhaps by flood waters, with the callow workers in the center?

whetstone,

@futurebird @NerdGirlInVR I love this description and that ant.

whetstone,

@futurebird @NerdGirlInVR Also I just looked this species up on Wikipedia and they don't mention the eyelessness (I'm not qualified to edit but that's such a neat fact and I wish it were in there). They do mention the use of these ants as sutures by the peoples who live in proximity to this species, since when they bite it's for keeps even if the body's removed. So incredible.

whetstone,

@futurebird @NerdGirlInVR Wikipedia said that the Maasai use the technique so I just went down a rabbit hole of cites and found this paper (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340068302_Biomaterials_and_biocompatibility_An_historical_overview) saying that the ants-as-surgical-staples thing was developed independently on three continents: South America, Africa, and India.

I love that this is an enormously widespread technology, both ants and humans are so cool!

QasimRashid, to random
@QasimRashid@mastodon.social avatar

Bed Bath & Beyond has filed for bankruptcy shortly after spending $1B in stock buybacks & cash payments to shareholders. Employees of 20 years got 0 notice & $0 severance.

It wasn't inflation. It wasn't labor cost. It is 100% corporate greed.

Tax billionaires. Unionize workers. Protect our economy.

whetstone,

@Stoneycase @QasimRashid Short selling is healthy, though. It's good for some investors to have an incentive to bust hype cycles rather than everyone trying to feed into them, drive prices up, and cash out.

100% with you on buybacks, though. I don't see any societal or broad-market value in them.

whetstone, to Iceland

#mosstodon #iceland

Southern Iceland is home to one of the most surreal landscapes I’ve ever seen. Nothing but moss as far as the eye could see. We got close to the ground and looked carefully, but didn’t see a single insect even when we gently rolled a small rock to peek underneath.

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