Yeah I love the back flips. I missed them when they were illegal. Now I wish there was another woman who could do them. Back in the 90s, Surya Bonaly Of France was the first to land a backflip on one foot, like Ilia is doing now.
It turns out that fungus growing termites sometimes cultivate Termitomyces titanicus. This is an excellent scientific name. It's a fungi farmed by termites (like ants they do not allow it to produce "fruiting bodies" or mushroom caps while the colony is active.) But when a colony dies it will produce a massive mushroom over a meter wide.
The fungi farmed by ants (Leucoagaricus gongylophorus) also produces mushrooms when their colonies die out. This fungi can't survive without the ants and the ants propagate it by carrying it with them when they found new nests:
So what is the purpose of the mushrooms?
Is it just a hold-over from the days before the fungi was dependent on ants?
I've been trying to find out if you can eat the ones that grow on old ant nests.
It's never really found just living on its own without ants to take care of it?
Ant keep it clean, set the correct humidity, feed it plant matter...
In fact, many antkeepers have tried to farm it (so they have extra fungi for their pet ants) and it's basically been impossible for people to do it, even with clean rooms, carefully cut leaves and humidity chambers.
It's totally dependent on ants.
Now... could it maybe float as spores and join an existing ant colony? Maybe? IDK
i used to work on this in grad school - hard fungus to collect!
The fungus packs the hyphal swelling that it feeds to the ants with enzymes to degrade plant material. The ants eat the hyphal swellings, and then defacate on fresh plant material as they bring it into a nest. This is perhaps one reason why the fungus can't live alone now - it needs the ants to pre-treat the leaves with these enzymes in order to grow efficiently. Bizarre stuff!
My next #SuperbOwlSunday photo is one of my favourite owl photos - two recently fledged young Barred Owls (Strix varia) on a branch. Cute, even if the sound they made wasn't! I have more photos of these two, and a video of them, in a blog post:
If you're a server admin who is still running the previous Friendica stable 2024.12 and were pulling Bookface from either the "main" or "stable" branches of the repo please be aware those are now targeting the new stable version 2026.01, which will not work with the previous stable version. There is now a separate 2024.12 branch in the repository.
If you're a server admin who is still running the previous Friendica stable 2024.12 and were pulling Bookface from either the "main" or "stable" branches of the repo please be aware those are now targeting the new stable version 2026.01, which will not work with the previous stable version. There is now a separate 2024.12 branch in the repository.
Please note that the Userstyles version has not been updated with 2.0 changes and that project is now archived. Those stylesheets will receive no further development or maintenance updates. If you're still on an instance that doesn't have the Bookface scheme available the version for Friendica Release Candidate 2025-07-rc does work with stable 2026.01.
Okay, so what's IN it? The most noticeable change in v2.0 is that the User Menu and Notifications have been moved to the far right in the desktop layout:
Also, the Search field expands on focus to make it easier to see what you are typing, and if navigation labels are enabled alignment issues with them have been fixed, as has the alignment of the buttons themselves.
When you open the User Menu now your user name appears with your avatar at all screen sizes. Some people have multiple accounts that use the same avatar and it could get confusing as to which account they were logged into when, at some screen widths, the username would disappear due to space constraints.
There has long been an alignment issue with Event Action Buttons if the label text was too long because they were absolutely positioned. They have been changed to a flex layout now, which also increased the space for the buttons above them:
The release for 2026.01 has a dozen changes and fixes. The release for 2024.12 has nearly two dozen. See the Changelog at the end of the ReadMe file for details.
FYI, if you've already grabbed the 2.0.0 release for the new stable 2026.01 please go download it again. There was something that got missed in the Dark Mode stylesheets. I didn't bump the version since it was supposed to be part of this update, I just replaced the release with the fixed version.
This does not affect the release for the old stable 2024.12 version.
Gold mining kills indigenous peoples throughout the world like the Yanomami people of Brazil and Papuans in West Papua. The bloody, violent and greedy landgrabbing that goes on for gold forces indi…
google (american company) is launching a product named aluminium OS. not aluminum, but aluminium. they've explicitly chosen the foreign spelling of the name.
this poll is only for those who normally call element 13 "aluminum" (americans, canadians, etc): how will/would you pronounce google's new operating system?
😔 ✋ "are you syncing your Google Chrome bookmarks from your Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold to your Google Aluminium OS ultrabook?" 😌 👆 "how'd you get your phone's bing buttons on your google macbook?"
I wonder if the thinking was that aluminium was that it is cheap and its toxicity in terms of the amount you get from aluminium utensils, cookware and aluminium foil for normal sized women and children is not widely advertised (viz doi.org/10.12923/2083-4829/202… ).
I'm one-half of Future Proof Games, creators of Rosette Diceless (https://rosetterpg.com), Exploit: Zero Day (https://exploitzeroday.com/), The Majesty of Colors (https://majestyofcolors.com), and Ossuary (http://fpgam.es/Ossuary).
We just realized that Obsidian is owned by Xbox, which means they're covered by BDS boycotts! So we're pivoting to The Garden Path from @fromcarrotcake.bsky.social ! Now live at: twitch.tv/averymd
I'm one-half of Future Proof Games, creators of Rosette Diceless (https://rosetterpg.com), Exploit: Zero Day (https://exploitzeroday.com/), The Majesty of Colors (https://majestyofcolors.com), and Ossuary (http://fpgam.es/Ossuary).
The good thing is , "Chat 😾 " does not seem to search in Mastodon well , or does not "understand" it. You're doing very well yourself to keep smashing glass -ceilings here 🙂 Together with some others !
I don't think you can actually believe those are its "reasons".
It's just describing the bias that exists in different terms. You asked for it to describe it in terms of that bias being something it had somehow expressed. Such a thing isn't even possible but making up a bunch of text that sounds like it isn't.
If you altered the context a bit by asking differently, maybe, "Why would they assume I'm man until my in-person interview," and it would be much the same text.
It gave a highly probable answer to the prompt, pulling in some facts it knows. That is what it does. It neither analysed any bias it actually has nor can it consider anything wrong nor is it whatsoever surprized. If you had asked why it thinks you are female, it would have found an explanation for that regardless of whatever it had said before.
I'm finally getting back to doing some streaming for @fpg's Future Proof Plays! I'll be streaming Pentiment at 15:00 EST (a little over an hour from now) over at twitch.tv/averymd
Aiming to keep the vibes pretty chill, but I miss geeking about games on stream with folks.
I'm one-half of Future Proof Games, creators of Rosette Diceless (https://rosetterpg.com), Exploit: Zero Day (https://exploitzeroday.com/), The Majesty of Colors (https://majestyofcolors.com), and Ossuary (http://fpgam.es/Ossuary).
Running on solar this afternoon. So glad to have to rooftop panels up!
I've noticed about a dozen other homes in my conservative rural Virginia neighborhood doing the same, and the town rec center recently got a large rooftop system as well. It gives me hope that some things are still moving in the right direction, even in these dark times.
The Nicobar pigeon is the largest pigeon in the world and the closest living relative to the extinct dodo bird. They are famous for their gorgeous iridescent feathers. When threatened they make a p…
You where all thinking it. And the answer is 'yes!'. Yes you can totally LASER engrave a banana to exfiltrate data from your secured premises. Just out of the machine the text is barely noticable. But the next morning? Clear as day.
Revered actor Sir Ian McKellan telling us what the Bard thought about xenophobia - so beautifully recited I burst into tears. An important message to us, from the 1600s...
...Unemployment figures show that over the past three years, there has been a rise in the number of older Australians (55-64 years) who are out of work: from 2.7 per cent in June 2022 to July 2023, to 3.1 per cent in July 2024 to June 2025...
While the unemployment rate has risen across all ages (15-64 years) from 3.6 per cent to 4.2 per cent over the same period, older Australians find it harder to secure employment if they lose their job.
A report by Jobs and Skills Australia shows the average duration of unemployment for mature-age people stood at 86 weeks in June 2024 — more than double the 37 weeks recorded for 15- to 54-year-olds...
Older women are further disadvantaged and vulnerable to long-term unemployment, according to Associate Professor Foula Kopanidis from RMIT University School of Economics.
In the three years that 65-year-old Kerry Forrest has been applying for positions, she has faced repeated rejection. She thinks it is time employers consider older workers more favourably.
This isn’t new news as such, but people keep being surprised by it, so it’s worth repeating. Substack hosts, profits from, and promotes explicitly Nazi content, and if you are adding value to that network, you are helping them to do so. theguardian.com/media/2026/feb…
#News: #Ningaloo Reef is dying! 🧐🔥 A new survey shows 60% of corals are dead after record heatwaves, turned to rock, killing off vital marine life. We MUST ACT NOW on #climatechange NOW before it's too late! 🌴☠️🚫 #Boycott4Wildlife @palmoildetect.bsky.social abc.net.au/news/2025-11-19/nin…
Four Big Tech Companies Avoid $51 Billion in Taxes in Wake of #Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act
“ The annual financial reports recently released by #Amazon, #Alphabet, #Meta, and #Tesla disclose that these corporations collectively reported $315 billion in US profits for 2025.
Yet they collectively paid just 4.9% of that amount in federal corporate income taxes not the usual 21% federal rate.
Four of the corporations whose CEOs flanked President Trump at his 2025 inauguration ceremony have now disclosed that they collectively received $51 billion in federal tax breaks in 2025, much of that likely from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA…
Testimony of Illegal poachers in Indonesia finds 26 of the estimated remaining 72 living Javan #Rhinos were slaughtered over the past five years. Shame!
The Hyprland ecosystem has matured significantly. We are no longer just looking at 'text files', some of these projects are complete desktop shells that outclass macOS in polish.
there's a minecraft mod called litematica that allows you to export things you've built in the game to share with others.
i've been working on a project that allows you to import these litematica schematics into vintage story. it's still at a very early stage, but i've got the basic concept working
OpenSSH server (or ftpd if you're so inclined to reduce overhead) on the Linux machine and Total Commander on the Android device. Full control, put the files where you want them to go the first time.
Some of these are useful for copying files to friends' phones or other devices (though Total Commander has that covered too as long as its same network).
File/folder syncing is a different use case and deserves its own article. ¢¢
I'm reminded of an ancient Cosma Shalizi quote: “… our gracious host would really _like_ to be just a little bit to the left of a technocratic center, and to debate those just a little bit to his right about optimal policies within a shared objective function, and pretending that it is a technical and not a political discussion..."
@knowprose It is true that social media companies thrive on conflict and tend to incentivize arguments. In this case, I am referring to the use of the word "polarization" among journalists and others to describe the political landscape in a safe way that avoids talking about what is actually happening.
I think this is somehow missing the point. The root of the problem is the first past the post voting system which leaves voters in practical terms with a binary choice between two parties. That is polarisation. That is black or white; right or left; billionaires or poverty - it is not a real reflection of life or politics and the only solution is to adopt proportional representation. That produces a range of political parties reflecting the range of political views.
I believe that there are inherent rights of people, and that those rights are nonnegotiable. They should be defended at all costs, even with violence if need be.
The late civil rights activist Israel Shahak would say "There are encouraging signs of polarization." It is the process of polarization that affects change.
completely disagree. Used polarisation precisely because it’s extremism becoming evident at both ends of the spectrum and mastodons might like to think on that.
Joyce Donahue
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in reply to Muse • • •@Joyce Donahue I can't see the stuff from the US because CBS is preventing their clips from being shown outside of the US.
Wasn't that backflip amazing?!
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