Time to move to…Russia?

Boy, Russian propaganda isn’t subtle at all. Move to Russia because they have Christianity, beautiful women, fertile soil, no cancel culture, and vodka.

I approve of this message. All right-wingers who love Putin — move to Russia now. You won’t regret it, and neither will we.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Russia has been successful in taking the Eastern parts of Ukraine, but the steamroller seems to have stalled out and is facing renewed combat from Western-supplied forces.

It’s the perfect time to move to Russia and help replenish their invasion forces! Their propaganda seems to be targeted explicitly at stupid young men, you know. Winter is coming.

Less than a day away from Minnesota, and I already miss it

I’m heading to Missouri, which is kind of the opposite of Minnesota. This is what’s happening in my home state:

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison Thursday announced that his office will not appeal the recent district court ruling that struck down most of Minnesota’s abortion restrictions.

On July 11, a Ramsey County judge ruled that Minnesota’s mandatory 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, and the two-parent notification requirement for girls under the age of 18 before an abortion, violated the state constitution.

Judge Thomas Gilligan — a Mark Dayton appointee — also lifted a state law that said only physicians can perform abortions.

We do rather stand out in the region.

Of its immediate neighbors, the state of Minnesota has by far the most liberal abortion laws. As a result, the state is set to become an abortion destination following the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Part way there

Hey! I’ve been driving all day long! We made it all the way to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and are recovering in a hotel room. We’ll be finishing the journey to St Louis tomorrow morning.

We made a few stops along the way, looking for spiders. Didn’t find many other than a few jumpers. We did find a strange painted rock at a rest stop near Owatonna.

All I could find about it was a closed facebook group for a rock club in Oklahoma, and I don’t do facebook. Apparently they paint these things and leave them hidden in various places, and it turns out that spider hunting is a good way to induce one to look in odd little crevices.

Skepticon tomorrow!

Talk is done, more or less!

I spent the morning adding the last bits to my Skepticon talk — it’s ready 3 days ahead of time! It’s been so long since I’ve given a conference talk that I might have over-prepared. Anyway, I could give it right now if I had to, but of course I’ll think of other things to add. Just on my walk home from the coffeeshop I have a few cunning ideas to throw in.

I can’t get carried away, though. It’s a 50 minute talk and no more — Lauren will be waiting in the wings, looking for any excuse to leap out and shiv me on stage. They run a tight ship there.

So tomorrow we start driving, with frequent stops for spiders. We’re spending the night in lovely Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and finishing the trip to St Louis on Friday. All you cool people — we’ll see you there.

Sorry, everyone

You like me! You really like me!

Yesterday’s short video clip of maggots has turned out to be surprisingly popular, second only to my most recent video about Jordan Peterson. This means that I seem to have found my YouTube niche: making videos about horrible, repulsive creatures that make viewers want to vomit. I’ve also gotten requests to make more. This was not expected.

Making more Jordan Peterson videos is too much for my stomach, so now I’m thinking about ways to lower a good camera into the slime pit without risking wrecking a good lens. Maybe a cheap old kit lens with some extension tubes? I’m also going to have to puzzle out a way to adapt a tripod to look downward, because I don’t want to do it hand-held for a half hour.

You never know when someone might want some good quality B-roll of maggots, you know!

Where’s Alex Jones when you need someone to scream about scary science?

The word is “necrobotics” — using science to reanimate corpses. It’s still necromancy. This one lab is taking advantage of the mechanics of spider limb movements to use their dead bodies as robot hands.

Unlike mammals, which move their limbs by extending and contracting opposing muscles, spiders move their legs via hydraulic pressure. More specifically, they have a “prosoma chamber” located near their head which sends blood into the legs as it contracts – this causes the legs to extend. When the pressure is released, the legs close back in.

You can see where this is going. All we have to do is apply a little pressure and the limbs will extend, so you can just slide a needle into the chamber and presto, you can make the dead spider dance like a puppet. One thing that surprises me is how easy it is, using just a hand-held syringe to pump up the limbs.

It’s a rather gimmicky approach, and I don’t believe for a moment that it will ever have any practical applications. You’d have to murder a lot of spiders, and it sounds like they’re only going to have limited utility. It’s the same reason we can’t use zombies as Amazon warehouse workers — sure, they’d be cheap, wouldn’t unionize, and you could work them nonstop, but after a few days to a week their arms would rot and fall off.

Jeff Bezos has probably already done the analysis.

The most horrible video I’ve ever made

This will be popular, sure.

My compost bin is extraordinarily productive in producing maggots, which makes the spiders living in there very happy. The resolution here isn’t great — I used my el cheapo camera, since I was plunging it down in close to the writhing mass of larvae. If anyone insists, I suppose I could redo this with a reasonably good macro lens.

Everything is real time — no time-lapse. That’s how fast they move! Also, listen carefully and you can hear them eating. It sounds a bit like soggy rice krispies.

It’s only a minute long, so don’t worry, it ends quickly. If anyone also insists, I could record a much longer video.

No one will insist.

I know this will make some people queasy, so I’m hiding it below the fold.

[Read more…]

The skunk is free!

I tried calling the authorities about our little skunk problem.

The humane society wasn’t equipped to deal with skunks. They suggested I call the police.

The police (who have been disbanded) couldn’t do anything. They suggested I call the DNR.

The DNR doesn’t have any officers in town. They suggested I call the police. When I said I had, they told me I’m on my own.

So…I threw an old tarp over the cage, opened the door while wearing goggles and heavy gloves, and the skunk scurried off to our backyard without mishap, fortunately, although the tarp is now rather stinky. Unfortunately, though, we found out where our skunk family lives: under our deck.