luthienebonyx

[luthienebonyx]

(stumbling out of the document covered in blood) ok i wrote 100 words

[luthienebonyx]

occasionally I am struck dumb by the sublime beauty of the world in the small moments, you know?

egg

[luthienebonyx]

Anywhere in this shape, Earth

[luthienebonyx]

Cute little ghostie

[luthienebonyx]

Mozilla, in its finite wisdom, embedded LLM bots into recent versions of Firefox for the vitally-important purpose of… naming tab groups. Now, some users are noticing CPU and power usage spikes caused by a background process called Inference.

Ugh. Reminder again for Firefox users to visit your about:config page, search for the browser.ml.chat.enabled key, and set that to false:

If yours says true then double-click it until it reads false.

Doing that turns off the AI chatbot features in Firefox, but also the stupid new LLM tab-naming feature that's rolling out.

[luthienebonyx]

Amazingly, this website still exists, even if some of the illustrations seem to have disappeared into the ether in the past couple of decades.

The people whipping up the discourse are all just different types of flame warriors. Keep that in mind and it puts it all into perspective compared to stuff that really matters.

watching a video and realizing I miss the term "flame war", it was JUST tongue-in-cheek goofy enough of a term to describe how silly it was to carry on long arguments online over shit that doesn't matter and was often started/spurned by a troll. Now ALL of it is just "discourse" or "engagement" which feels like they put a godawful slap of PR paint over the surface of flame wars like a cheap landlord looking to charge 1000 dollars more for the same crumbling walls

[luthienebonyx]

Say hello to Loki

(via)

[luthienebonyx]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - "Julie Manet with Cat (detail)" (1877)

[luthienebonyx]

Jaguars swimming

[luthienebonyx]

The Oriental Blue Clearwing Moth: these moths were regarded as a "lost species" for more than 130 years, until they were finally sighted again in 2013

For more than 130 years, the Oriental blue clearwing moth (Heterosphecia tawonoides) was known only from a single, badly damaged specimen that was collected in Sumatra in 1887. There were no recorded sightings of this species again until 2013, when entomologist Dr. Marta Skowron Volponi unexpectedly found the moths feeding on salt deposits that had accumulated along the riverbanks in Malaysia's lowland rainforest.

These moths were observed by researchers again in 2016 and 2017, and research indicates that the moths are actually bee-mimics, as they mimic the appearance, sound, behavior, and flight patterns of local bees. Their fuzzy, bright blue appearance might seem a little out of place for a bee-mimic, but those features do appear in several different bee species throughout Southeast Asia.

When the moths are in flight, they bear a particularly strong resemblance to the bees of the genus Thyreus (i.e. cuckoo bees, otherwise known as cloak-and-dagger bees), several of which are also bright blue, with banded markings, dark blue wings, fuzzy legs, and smooth, rounded antennae. The physical resemblance is compounded by the acoustic and behavioral mimicry that occurs when the moths are in flight.

Cloak-and-Dagger Bees: the image at the top shows an Indo-Malayan cloak-and-dagger bee (Thyreus novaehollandiae) in a sleeping position, holding itself upright with its mandibles clamped onto a twig, while the image at the bottom shows a Himalayan cloak-and-dagger bee (T. himalayensis) resting in the same position

The moths also engage in "mud-puddling" among the various bees that congregate along the riverbanks; mud-puddling is the process whereby an insect (usually a bee or a butterfly) draws nutrients from the fluids found in puddles, wet sand, decaying plant matter, carrion, animal waste, sweat, tears, and/or blood. According to researchers, the Oriental blue clearwing moth was the only lepidopteran that was seen mud-puddling among the local bees.

Dr. Skowron Volponi commented on the unusual appearance and behavior of these moths:

You think about moths and you envision a grey, hairy insect that is attracted to light. But this species is dramatically different—it is beautiful, shiny blue in sunlight and it comes out during the day; and it is a master of disguise, mimicking bees on multiple levels and even hanging out with them. The Oriental blue clearwing is just two centimeters in size, but there are so many fascinating things about them and so much more we hope to learn.

This species is still incredibly vulnerable, as it faces threats like deforestation, pollution, and climate change. The president of Global Wildlife Conservation, which is an organization that seeks to rediscover "lost species," added:

After learning about this incredible rediscovery, we hope that tourists visiting Taman Negara National Park and picnicking on the riverbanks—the home of these beautiful clearwing moths—will remember to tread lightly and to take their trash out of the park with them. We also recommend that Americans learn about palm oil production, which is one of the primary causes of deforestation in Malaysia.

Sources & More Info:

Phys.org: Bee-Mimicking Clearwing Moth Buzzes Back to Life After 130 Years

Mongabay News: Moth Rediscovered in Malaysia Mimics Appearance and Behavior of Bees to Escape Predators

Journal of Tropical Conservation Science: Lost Species of Bee-Mimicking Clearwing Moth, H. tawonoides, Rediscovered in Peninsular Malaysia's Primary Rainforest

Frontiers in Zoology: Southeast Asian Clearwing Moths Buzz like their Model Bees

Royal Society Publishing: Moving like a Model - mimicry of hymenopteran flight trajectories by clearwing moths of Southeast Asian rainforests

Medium: Rediscovery in a Glint of Blue

re:wild.org: The "Search for Lost Species" Project

[luthienebonyx]

tgis is so fucking funny to me. they accidentally Rock Lee'd a retired racehorse

[luthienebonyx]

It's been 15 years since one of the best scenes of Doctor Who 😭😭

[luthienebonyx]

Tumblr Sexy Doctor

[luthienebonyx]

The professionals of the Enterprise would like to remind you to critically read and evaluate your sources

[luthienebonyx]

There are three breeds of cat:

Chonk

Goblin

Yeah that looks like a cat