something like life

Redditors crashed the website with donations over $25k and 0 wishes left. via /r/MadeMeSmile

This isn't a new discussion in the United States. The tallest peak in the country was reverted to its native name of Denali from McKinley (which it was given only about 105 years ago). Imagine if someone moved into your home town and renamed everything after things significant to them (but not to you). That's what happened to much of the geography of our country.

The naming of geologic and geographic features is wraught with problems. Not only were native names supplanted with European or American names, many times those names were outright racist. The geologic and geographic community has been coming to terms with this and the march to rename these features has started.“

As agribusiness, a slow legal system and Bolsonaro’s policies threaten lands, Indigenous peoples are fighting back

“Deni Farm, owner Edilson Pereira Duarte”; “Mato Grosso Farm, owner Vanderlei Martins de Oliveira”. These two signs, incorporating the Brazilian flag, are nailed to trees on either side of the road leading to Kapot village, in the Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Land, northern Mato Grosso state.

A barrier spans the road leading into Kapot. Drivers must get out of their vehicles and lift it to proceed, in contradiction to the legal requirement that access to Indigenous territory should be free and unhindered.

The signs and the barrier send a clear message. This land is private property and the law is not respected in these parts. Drones have shown that a plot of land in the area is already being cleared of trees. Will it join the gigantic soya or maize plantations that are advancing unchecked over these areas of tropical forest?

According to data from 2021, in the state of Mato Grosso, soya occupies some 9.8 million hectares and maize some 5.1 million hectares, a combined area equivalent to half the size of Belgium. Along with cattle pastures, these plantations already threaten to encircle this and many other Indigenous territories in the Brazilian Amazon, one of the country’s “agricultural frontiers”.

Don’t weed out milkweed, and don’t use pesticides on it. It’s the only plant that Monarch eggs are laid on, and keeping it alive as best you can helps more butterflies be born!

Research and plant nectar plants! This may not be possible based on your location and area, but if you don’t have a yard for it, local parks will respond if you contact them about volunteering to help plant! Nectar plants help feed butterflies on their long migrations from Canada and the USA to Mexico!

Donate to charities that help do things like plant milkweed and conserve butterfly forest habitat! Save our monarchs and Xerces Monarch Butterfly Conservation are a great start, but I encourage you to research on your own for charities that work for you!

Avoid pesticides! Pesticides can kill milkweed, and even kill the butterflies themselves! Monarch population is already down 90%, and even small steps like using crushed eggshell barriers and spraying pests away with water can be a great alternative!

here’s a picture of him holding it on top of the largest water lily in the world at the time of this photo, Victoria amazonica, which we now know is actually the second largest next to this new one, which is a close relative!

🚫 illegal: how old are you?

⚠️ dicey: what year did you graduate?

✅ legal: are you 18 or older?

🚫 illegal: do you have kids?

⚠️ dicey: what responsibilities do you have at home?

✅ legal: can you adhere to this schedule?

🚫 illegal: do you have a disability or are you mentally ill?

⚠️ dicey: is there anything we should know about you that would interfere with your job?

✅ legal: can you perform these specific (named and described) duties?

🚫 illegal: have you ever been arrested?

⚠️ dicey: would you like to tell us about any problems you've had with the law?

Source

[image description: image is a flow chart entitled " You can put an end to this: never pay to pet a cub" the chart starts with a drawing of a tiger cub head with a hand touching it. There are 6 arrows that flow from the start, in order from left to right:

1. Drawing of 3 small tigers, "constant breeding to supply cubs" arrow leads to image of a hand holding a sack with and a hand taking it, "injection of assets into the illegal wildlife trade"

2. Drawing of tiger skin rug and bottles, "older tigers sold for parts" arrow splits to two first leading back to "injection of assets into the illegal wildlife trade", and an drawn image of a bottle above 3 outstretched hands, "increases size of tiger product market" arrow to drawn image of a bear trap, "more poaching: wild tiger products preferred over captive"

3. Drawing of a mounted tiger head and a rifle "older tigers sold for canned hunting"

4. Drawing of tiger in very small barred cage, "older tigers sold to unaccredited zoos and backyard owners"

5. Drawn image of hands counting a large stack of money, "masquerading as non-profits takes away from legit organizations"

6. Drawing of the globe and a tiger head on it, "irresponsible breeding hurts gene pool"

People who received cash were able to access the food they needed to live faster. Nearly 70% did after one month, and maintained greater food security throughout the year. The recipients spent more on food, clothing and rent, while there was a 39% decrease in spending on goods like alcohol, cigarettes or drugs.“

It’s almost like people self medicate to survive intense stress like, idk, not having the cash to live anywhere but outdoors. People who are extremely poor do not want to be poor, we WANT to be safe and have autonomy in our lives but capitalism makes that impossible for some people.

But if you get that $5000 all at once and then nothing for the rest of the year, that’s enough to get an apartment for a month, and your meds, and food, and clothes, and then well hey you can look for a job (and you have a mailing address, wow!).

THIS THING SHOOTS 6.5mm CREEDMOOR WHAT THE FUCK. FOR REFERENCE, THIS IS WHAT THAT ROUND LOOKS LIKE COMPARED TO A 9mm

GOOD TIME TO SHARE THE BATTERY INFO AGAIN SO YOU CAN SHUT THESE DUDES DONE

Image ID: Tweet thread from Dr Sarah Taber reads: PSA for anyone who might be dealing with robot gun dogs, from a farm robot specialist who wasn’t really looking at robot wrangling from the public safety standpoint but here we are.

I haven’t worked w police/military robotics so I can’t speak to exactly how these are built. But I can tell you, IME roboticists can be really naive about environmental conditions: making robots sturdy enough to handle rain, dirt, & other outdoor realities.

For example! I’ve worked w a couple startups that do fruit picking robots. They build the thing, *then* call me in to figure out how to clean it. And half the time you can’t. Bc the picking arm has all these delicate cameras & servos that can’t get wet.

Folks who build robots at this time tend to be focused on making it do cool things like see, jump, run, & somersault. So they can release teaser videos that make everybody go “wow what a fancy robot” They tend to be less focused on actual service performance: DURABILITY.

What’s this mean? The joints, motors, cameras, & other sensors are more exposed than they should be. It’s easy for water, road salt, grit, etc to get in there and cripple the robot.

I mean look at this thing. That housing’s got more nooks & crannies than a dang English muffin. You think that’s watertight?

For robots that work outside, not even watertight is good enough. Farms add surfactants (like dish soap) to sprays. They make the sprays stick to leaves & get into all the nooks & crannies of the plant. So farm robots need surfactant-proof seals. Not just waterproof.

Otherwise after a few hours in the field, you have a mix of dew, mud, soil & grit, and whatever surfactants you put in your last pesticide mixing together & working their way into all the robot’s delicate parts. Scratching up the cameras. Jamming up the joints & motor.

If there’s any salt or acid in the mix, it’s even worse! Some soils have a lil salt in them, or an acidic pH. It’s actually pretty common! The salts or H+ ions work their way into the machine & corrode the shit out of EVERYTHING. Bye-bye expensive farm robot!

Now let’s apply this to street settings. Water. Dirt & grit. Road salt. Just a little salt destroys metal! Even faster if it’s mixed with water, acids, surfactants, &/or grit.

And again, dirt & grit destroy joints. They scratch up camera lenses & otherwise interfere with sensors. They also scratch up any corrosion-proof coatings the engineers may have put on there, & expose the metals to water, salt, & acid.

These robots look super-vulnerable to normal wear & tear. They look even more vulnerable to a super-soaker filled with common household items like salt, vinegar, & just a lil dish soap. Maybe with a lil diatomaceous earth to bump up the scrubbing power.

If they don’t go belly-up from short circuits immediately, they’re still looking at either an expensive tear-town, clean, & rebuild (takes the robot off the street for a few days) or it’ll go belly-up within a week or two. Both options are REALLY expensive & frustrating for own

Especially if they get hit with water/salt/acid/grit/soaps ASAP the moment they hit the street again. Then the robots wind up spending more time in the shop on life support than actually doing their job.

That’s actually a pretty common outcome for automation! Everyone gets excited about this fancy new machine that’s going to replace people. Then in real life it turns out to be broken all the time, can’t do shit, it’s a giant money pit, & eventually the sponsors give up.

idk just some thoughts on outdoor automation from someone who buries the corpses of failed robots for a living

diatomaceous earth can be bought as an organic insecticide from the farm store. Basically finely ground stone whichs surface kills fleas, mites and ticks mechanically because it is so microscopic small particles, but extremly rough that it takes off the protective surface that keeps insects from drying out.

I find that there’s not a lot of talk about how large a population you need when people do talk about seed saving. I think it’s a lot bigger than most people expect, especially for out-crossers like broccoli and corn. On top of that, if you want to be growing something different than your neighbors (or say, want to save broccoli seed when a lot of people let kale go to seed around you), you need to consider isolation distances. Let’s look at population size first.