Cam Fox @dentalflossbay@qoto.org

PLEASE check your kids' Halloween candy. Just found an Okta admin access token in a Snickers bar.

It's mushroom season! Here are all the types that you will see.
My newsletter list: http://buttondown.email/rosemarymosco

@Luxomancer
Colour scheme on the first one reminds me of the Elephant Hawk-moth (Deilephila elpenor) I found chilling out on some low vegetation by a footpath (Derbyshire, UK) when walking the dog ~20 years ago. It very obligingly let me carry it the short distance home so I could take photos.

(I released it into the depths of an overgrown garden immediately afterwards...)

Gorgeous creatures, the lot of them!

#moths #insects #mothstodon

So in Iceland, IIUC, new names require approval by a committee, but sufficiently old names are automatically approved.

Idea for a crime/farce movie:

A pastor in rural Iceland needs money for church maintenance or something. So they go into business forging birth records from the 1700s and 1800s so that parents can get their names approved.

At first their ambitions are modest (eg, Dominic, Kaya), but eventually they are forging records for Khaleesi Björnsdóttir (b. 1813) and Dögecoin Jónsson

@ironicsans

♫ I am a language model of a modern major general
I’m trained upon a giant mass of textual material
I’ve billions of parameters and answer questions various
Responses range from perfect to unwittingly hilarious
I’m very well acquainted too with matters mathematical
As long as with correctness you’re not overly fanatical
While many complex queries I can easily elucidate
I have an awkward tendency to freewheel and hallucinate ♫

Hmm, I've gotten pretty good coverage of infosec here but clearly not enough camberville news... https://twitter.com/CambridgeMAFire/status/1621950620331556871

Rhinoceros Katydid

#insects #CostaRica #Katydids

Die Weibchen der Melierten Schneckenfliege (Coremacera marginata) legen ihre Eier an Schneckenhäusern oder an Nacktschnecken ab und die Maden entwickeln sich dort parasitisch.

#natur #artenvielfalt #naturfoto #nature #Insekten #diptera #Hornfliegen #Sciomyzidae #insects #fliegen

Female Ancistrocerus biphaleratus, a wasp belonging to the Vespidae family. It is a solitary wasp.

Femella d'Ancistrocerus biphaleratus, aquesta vespa pertany a la família Vespidae i és una vespa solitària.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/115958591

#wasp #hymenoptera #insects #insectes #inaturalist #insectos #insekten #entomology #macrophotography #makro #macro #nature #wildlife #wildlifephotography #natura #natur #naturaleza #olympus

I admit, as an entomologist I just don’t pay much attention to moths. But they’re really stunning close-up, especially the smaller ones.

This one is Glyphipterix chrysoplanetis, a sedge moth. Yarra Ranges National Park, Australia.

#moth #insects #lepidoptera #Australia

One of the most impressive Noctuids with wings that resemble a dead leaf. Gloriana ornata, a Catocalinae. If the scientific name can be translated as 'ornate glory' I think it is very appropriate. #moths #nature #insects

More #quilts for the quilt lovers out there!

#sewing #quilt #quilting #thread #quilters #textiles #art #artist

A little story.

In 2014, the UK charity, Stonewall, had a new CEO: Ruth Hunt.

Ruth wanted to make Stonewall trans inclusive. Up until that point it hadn’t been. Part of that effort was to recruit an advisory group from the UK trans community.

I was on that group. I ended up as its vice chair.

We spent the next year and a bit creating a document called “A Vision For Change”, which detailed what we thought the areas that trans equality campaigning should focus on in Britain.

Then the Brexit referendum happened and Cameron ragequit. Theresa May came in and it was apparent there was very little government apetite for the stuff we wanted.

But May, who was there when the same Sex marriage bill went through under the earlier coalition government had had something of a damascene conversion to LGBT rights issues. Stranger things have happened (but not many!)

So she wanted something from our list that was quick, easy, and uncontroversial. Obviously we were disappointed, but she was presented with bringing Britain’s antiquated Gender Recognition Act up to date, and in line with other European countries, as something simple. We honestly thought it was. It’s an administrative change of very little significant consequence, and actually no significance at all outside the trans community.

And it would have been simple, had an eclectic collection of unpleasant, obsessive arseholes with privileged access to the UK press not decided to start a culture war over trans people at that exact moment.

A culture war which, at least in England, they basically won. In part, this war was why I emigrated to Portugal.

Here we are, seven years later, and the result of Scotland finally wanting to implement a watered down version of the “easy win” we presented to Theresa May is apparently that the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is willing to end the Union between England and Scotland over it.

So that’s my story. I am part of a small, elite cabal of LGBT people who wrote a document that is poised to destroy the last vestiges of the British Empire.

Go me! If there are any other governments you want destabilising, my bank details are available on request. I provide reasonable rates.

This bat-like fly is another feather-legged fly. This guy is Trichopoda lanipes. He's enjoying some euonymus blossoms. He's another not-particularly-bristly tachinid.

#fly #flyday #flyfriday #flies #tachinidae #insects #diptera #nature #photography

A proposal: Release a black #squirrel if no new #Speaker is elected, a white squirrel if a new #speakerofthehouse is announced

an antlion (Myrmeleonidae). I find it hard to believe they are named for their larvae's habit of trapping ants and other small insects in pits they have dug in the ground but it seems that is the case. It still seems to me a silly name.
#insects #entomology #nature #naturePhotography

Great Egrets fighting for fishing rights. Great Egrets have very strict rules about fishing too close to each other, as that might scare the fish away.