szescstopni @szescstopni@qoto.org

#Skiing Can’t quite make it work on these tracks
#DogsOfMastodon had a good walk though

Does anyone else wait for their phone to stop ringing so they can text the caller back?

Research at @UTAustin finds that community gardens and urban farms not only provide food and improve people’s well-being, they also have a positive impact on #biodiversity & local ecosystems. It's a win-win. This has to be the way to grow in the future!   
https://phys.org/news/2023-02-urban-gardens-good-ecosystems-humans.html

I built an Excel spreadsheet a decade ago to track work projects and have been using it as a template every year since, with only a few tweaks. And I only just noticed that the column header for email addresses still has a hyphen in it. Because ten years ago “it’s spelled ‘e-mail’” was a hill I would have died on.

I've lived in a rural forested area but so many times when I saw something and ran to get my camera, it' was gone by the time I got back. This time this large female pileated woodpecker was too focused on her task to care about me. Their beaks are strong and can knock whole chunks of bark off a mature Douglas Fir tree. https://fineartamerica.com/featured/female-pileated-woodpecker-no-2-belinda-greb.html #birdphotography #pileatedwoodpecker #aYearforart #wildlifephotography #naturephotography

Continuing my obsession with animals in Glasgow's architecture, here's a lizard I came across on the front of the John Ross Memorial Church for the Deaf on West Regent Street.

#glasgow #animalsinarchitecture
#glasgowbuildings #glasgowarchitecture #designdetail
#westregionstreet #lizards #animals #sculpture

SO EXCITING to see so many new people on here. If you run a sex blog, write erotica, take sexy photos or make audio porn, reply to this with a link to your site and I'll add you to my list!

(It's a good list, basically just one I dip into every now and then so I can boost other smutty folks I follow - sometimes things get lost in the TL)

A beaver's work is never done! #wildlife #beaver

Waldpilze

Jeśli nigdy nie napisaliście szefowi maila o treści "Dzień dobry, muszę wziąć urlop na żądanie na konia, bo jest chory i jadę do stajni spotkać się z weterynarzem", to nic nie wiecie o życiu.

Your annual reminder that your monthly metrics will be down 10% in February because February is 10% shorter than January. Please do not contact your data team about it.

This is one of my favorite pictures. It feels like it was taken yesterday… but it was taken in a Paris public garden nearly a hundred years ago. Everything feels modern: the composition, the casualness, the daring clothes, haircuts, and accessories.

The colors are original: this is an #autochrome, using the first process for color #photography invented by the Lumière brothers in 1903.

The women are unknown, but I can't help wondering how they fared a few years later in nazi-occupied Paris.

Confucius: “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

Me taking notes: 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘤𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘦, 𝘨𝘰 𝘣𝘪𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵 2 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴.

Blick durch mein Fernglas
Silberreiher vor Güterzug
#birds

“Rewilding Britain reports that beaver-created wetlands reduce flooding in downstream communities by as much as 60%. Where once water would have passed quickly over packed ground, creating flash floods and carrying away topsoil, the #wetlands slow it down and give it time to absorb into the #soil.

They also store water and release it slowly in times of #drought.”
#beavers #climate #nature

Congrats to #Hampshire!

“A pair of beavers will soon be released into an Ewhurst Park estate in southern #England, reports the Guardian.

Beavers were once so desired for their meat, fur, and scent glands that the population was hunted to oblivion in England almost 400 years ago.

However, in recent years, the government has been working to restore the #beaver population, licensing releases at multiple locations across the country. Just last year, a new law was passed that made it illegal to kill or injure these animals.

The Ewhurst Park release will be the first time #beavers have returned to the county of #Hampshire, according to the Guardian.”

https://www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/beavers-climate-hunted-hampshire-england-extinction

(More)

You see, this is an incredibly misunderstood phenomenon and even I'm barely starting to grasp the nuances of it

You know it fondly as that annoying (or pleasurable? hey, you do you) pang of mini-lightning after walking on a carpet, taking-off/putting-on a jacket etc...

But that thing is the reason why you're here. That's right, merely existing (alive or dead) generates static electricity. Ask a stalk of a dried cattail at a pond (or pensively observe, you aspiring nature whisperer) and you'll understand that thing creates electricity just by the wind brushing past it

And that's another thing: Electricity isn't "created", "generated" or other metaphorical substitute we try to jam into our vocabulary to try and mo(u)ld reality. Electrons just moving from where there is more to where there is less. "Charge" is just the state after this session of electron musical chairs. How? Holes

Yes, holes. We all have them. Holes that act as spots for electrons (chairs) and are greater in some than in others. Some say it's incorrect to use "holes" as an analogy, but we're not striving for pedantry here. Silicon is in a bit of a goldilocks zone. A holey zone, if you will. You can make it conduct or not (play electrical musical chairs) by preparing the holes (chairs) in such a way that they'll "usually" direct current in one direction

Basically, any interaction with the environment will create flows of electrons, and therefore charges, and give ample opportunities to discharge as well. Did you breath? That's a charge. Did you sit down? That's a charge. Take off your socks? That's a charge. But all sessions of musical chairs have limits

You can only create so much of a difference in charge before bad things happen to your holes. The main thing is to make sure the discharging happens through a holey thing that can handle the rush. Basically, don't tear your holes

So musical chairs is all well and good, but if you're tripping over yourself, something's gonna break. But introduce a speed limit and you end up with fewer broken chairs and fewer torn holes. How? Resistance

Which brings us back to static: The electrons are always going to find a way back to where they came from (from where they left to where there are fewer). In musical chairs, you're usually going in one direction until the music stops. In circuits, the flow of electrons always try to come back to ground

There is no s̶p̶o̶o̶n̶ ground. There's only Earth and a whole bunch of plateaus in between. So you have circuit with one plateau and electrons are returning to it happily, maybe it's battery powered. They're actually traveling from negative to positive

Yes, it's counterintuitive, but if you think of Electrons as "minus", they're leaving the minus camp (where there are more) to the plus camp (where they're fewer, as we found out earlier). But introduce a much higher plateau (static) into this mix and the fall of electrons from that height is gonna knock the electrons off your original plateau all the way to Earth (the lowest plateau)

This is kinda bad for anything with delicate holes. Silicon has delicate holes

And that brings to our conclusion about static electricity. If you're working on circuits, understand that anything and everything will create charges. The One True Ground is Earth and any excess charge will eventually find its way to it. Give this charge a way to dissipate, but introduce resistance so you don't tear the holes in the thing you're working on (a 1M resistor will do fine). That's the funny wrist strap thingy you see technicians wearing while working on stuff and that's connected to Earth through a resistor

Thanks for reading

[Note: The above post comes with no warranties whatsoever and does not imply accuracy, competence, or even coherence. Ask your electronics professional if #HardwareHacking is for you]

What a brave new world we live in