Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan

Of all the images of this building that I have viewed prior to visiting it myself, this is the viewpoint that really sparked my interest to go, but with the niggling question why has no one has ventured to climb it. I'm damn sure had a certain Doctor... Paul, beaten me to it, we would all have read or seen on the news by now that a mad-cap photographer had fallen from it and broken various limbs whilst talking a walk during a long exposure!

To be fair, I did look into the possibilities myself, but clearly this proved to be a design tease by Zaha as the wall is vertical... or at least 89 degrees (you need to read the other text to make sense of that). The transitions from pavement to structure is virtually undetectable from certain positions.

Hopefully something in colour next time....

The trees communicate in terpenes and other volitiles only detectable with special instruments (though we also can sometimes smell the forest).

The trees are neurons in a cortex. When we walk in the woods, we are traveling through a brain, and maybe also through a mind, of sorts. What emergent properties does a stand of trees have? The trees collective thoughts are completely foreign to us.

Their conversation is mostly undetectable and very sedate to creatures that run at roughly human clock speeds. No need to be hasty.

Trees absorb sheaves of solar rays too. Many of them are also invisible until they enter the lens of a camera without its hot mirror filter. Because the camera doesn't know which light should be visible to us, it records all the photons that hit it sensor as red, green, or blue. And in this way, through technological unknowing, we obtain knowledge of the unseen.

This follows the pattern of our general experience of life. First, even the plain things going on all around us take time and sometimes extra effort to even start to observe — let alone fully understand.

Second, it is only by moving through a phase of ignorance that we can allow even what is brilliantly illuminated to enter our awareness.

The truth is not just out there, it is everywhere.

— Theodore Tollefson @thetollart

Since these bugs are such an amazing hunters, they are considered to be one of the more beneficial insects since it feeds often on wasp and flies. Even with its interesting coloration, these bugs do not just restrict its habitat to yellow flowers. This creature has a knack for camouflaging its body so that it remains almost completely undetectable on any color of flower.

Of course the diet does not just consist of flies and wasp. This predatory creature is well known for eating butterflies, bees or most other soft-shelled insects that come within its reach.

Happy World Aids Day xo

I've been living with HIV for the past year and a half, educate yourself a lil on it if you have time <3

undetectable=untransmittable

www.nhs.uk/conditions/hiv-and-aids/

This Coyote is hunting for mice under the snow. His readiness to pounce while remaining undetectable is as important as his ability to hear and track a mouse under the snow.

Coyote-01265-Edit

So, I'm going to post a couple of shots of this guy; who is a really interesting subject to me...in the other post I'll explain; but some background first. In this touristy area of St. Augustine, FL street performers have been made to leave the main spot of George Street. As I walked down the street I could hear this guy singing. Down a small desolate side road sat this man...The Song Man as I named him. Perfect acoustical sound bouncing off the stucco and coquina walls with not a soul around. Nevertheless, the Song Man continued to belt out his melody as $1 hung from his guitar bag. With a soft, almost undetectable breeze the dollar flapped.

I composed this image during one of this summer's road trips through Kananaskis Country, a wilderness and recreational area west of Calgary, Canada. It is one of the last summer images of this area I'll take this year. Autumn is soon upon us.

In one of Robert Frost's poems, he states: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep..." These words suggest that, in our minds, forests live in a state of contradiction: peace and beauty on one hand, fear and trepidation on the other. This photograph allows me to share with you a few thoughts about this contradiction.

Forests have always been recognized as the earthly embodiment of life, providing sustenance, shelter, and protection for countless species. Ancient cultures understood this vital role and often believed that the health of a forest was a direct reflection of the health of their people and the planet.

In many indigenous cultures, this connection between the health of the forest and the well-being of the people was not just a metaphor; it was a practical reality. They relied on the forest for food, medicine, and materials, and understood that preserving and protecting these resources was essential for their survival.

But a forest is also a rich and venerable metaphor for the unconscious, a wild realm where the sun and moon cast shadows indiscernible from the shapes to which they belong; where sound travels strangely and without reference; where creatures can be of this world or the other. As such, forests hold a profound connection to the spiritual world, serving as a bridge between the natural and the supernatural. Related to the above, the Japanese find peace in "forest bathing," and most of us understand the positive feelings that often occur when one walks in a forest that this phrase is attempting to capture.

Others have found other - and more sinister - symbolism in their consideration of the meaning of forests. The dark forest hypothesis is the conjecture that many alien civilizations exist throughout the universe, but they are both silent and hostile, maintaining their undetectability for fear of being destroyed by another hostile and undetected civilization. It is one of many possible explanations of the Fermi paradox, which contrasts the lack of contact with alien life with the potential for such contact. The hypothesis derives its name from Liu Cixin's 2008 novel The Dark Forest, although the concept predates the novel.

We meet again, shadow walker!!!

You know, today I understand you much more than some time ago, when in some similar place, we met for the first time.

You must be used to visualize souls in sorrow, who lost their way and succumbed, in the hands of anguish and loneliness.

Believe me, I don't envy your work. But this time, I would like to think that you hear the prayers. I am also almost certain, that the sorrows are not so different in those who come to you. How many, before their departures, used words like helplessness or frustration.

I will join that army of the unheard, but fully aware that they are very similar or were, when their strength left them. I ask you to pretend to listen to me, but I will not be one more member of that army, walking in the footsteps of the vanquished, I only know, and I am convinced of it, that it is a bad time, nothing more.

I will not deny that I remain drowned in my impotence and frustration. It would seem that everything I was is gone. I observe the world as a kind of big stage where the functions, the acts, are continuous, only the actors change, but the common thread is the tragedy. Like a kind of permanent nightmare, one of those that you want to escape and you can't run, nor wake up. The isolation is almost undetectable; you only notice it when it is almost too late.

I would like to believe that the absences are only their fault, the others, but it is not so, at least in a whole. There is a lot of oneself that one does not manage to embrace, that is what is not perceived while in seclusion. Perhaps those who saw me as a kind of all-terrain character, were frightened or simply did not recognize the one who presented himself to them as someone so different. You know, those fortuitous encounters, where empty things are said, how are you? It's been a long time, when we met for a few drinks, you look good, I'm glad of this meeting, I'll call you back, .......

But that was not my attitude when some of my close ones went through those same labyrinths. On the contrary, I was there, more than ever and ready to help.

I only have my fantasy left, but even it abandoned me. Friends who are no longer friends, parents who have died, pseudo admirers of those who, at my first stumble, run away, so as not to be reached by that state.

Like those despicable beings who, on a corner, stop their cars waiting for the green light, and a homeless person approaches them to ask for a ticket. They roll down their tinted windows, just a little, to pass them low-numbered bills. But there is nothing dignified about this act, it is just a kind of self-proclaimed sanctification. Indifference and apathy are symptoms of this new society. I have always thought that not seeing the other in misfortune, giving them a miserable alms does not honor its meaning, which comes from Latin and means "mercy" which in turn means: the willingness to sympathize with the sufferings and miseries of others.

Undoubtedly, what I am writing is directly related to the political acts, which, in my country, unfortunately, put as president a sinister character. Whose only purpose, beyond his incredible distance from reality (literally) submits the people to the absolute loss of their rights and to planned poverty, raising banners of freedom (whose meaning "is the possibility of acting of one's own free will") I wonder, how can one exercise free will, when millions of people eat only once a day, in the best of cases?

It was not my intention, when I began to write such a story, to get at the political reality of my country.

But there must be, and no doubt there is, that much of my drowning, is related to the events of these last almost, 6 months.

There is a phrase that says that one's problem is only the problem of the person who suffers from it. I'm not sure that's exactly how I wrote it. But it gives me a pass to ask myself another question:

In case my problem is major, does that exclude myself, in thinking of those who suffer major problems?

The answer is NO.

But let us make an act of collective conscience. Do we not go on with our lives, knowing that Palestine is being massacred with impunity? Do we not go on with our lives knowing that a large part of Africa, since time immemorial, has been subjected to hunger and disease?

Much closer to home, do we walk in front of homeless people, avoiding their gaze?

The list is endless.

There will be walls that separate us from what we do not want to see, but every day they must be higher and thicker. It is inevitable that they will fall because of the thundering of the voices we do not want to hear today.

¡Nos volvemos a encontrar, caminante de las sombras!!

¿Sabes? Hoy te comprendo mucho más que hace un tiempo, cuando en algún lugar similar, nos vimos por primera vez.

Estarás acostumbrado a visualizar almas en pena, que perdieron su rumbo y sucumbieron, en manos de la angustia y la soledad.

Créeme, no envidio tu trabajo. Pero esta vez, desearía, pensar que escuchas las plegarias. También estoy casi seguro, que las penas no son tan diferentes en aquellos que acuden a vos. Cuantos, antes de sus partidas, usaron palabras como impotencia o frustración.

Me uniré a ese ejercito de los no escuchados, pero plenamente consciente que ellos son muy similares o fueron, cuando sus fuerzas, los abandono. Te pido que hagas como si me escucharas, pero no seré un miembro más de ese ejército, transitando los pasos de los vencidos, solo sé, y estoy convencido de ello, que es un mal momento, nada más.

No negaré que permanezco ahogado en mi impotencia y frustración. Parecería que todo lo que fui ya no está. Observo el mundo como una especie de gran escenario donde las funciones, los actos, son continuados, solo cambian los actores, pero el hilo conductor es la tragedia. Como una especie de pesadilla permanente, de esas que deseas escapar y no logras correr, ni despertar. Es casi imperceptible el aislamiento, solo lo notas cuando ya casi es tarde. Desearía creer que las ausencias son solamente culpa de ellos, los demás, pero no es así, por lo menos en un todo. Hay mucho de uno mismo, que no logra abarcar, que es lo que no se percibe mientras sucede la reclusión. Tal vez aquellos que me veían como una especie de personaje todo terreno, se asustaron o simplemente no reconocían aquel que se les presento, como alguien tan diferente. Ya saben, esos encuentros fortuitos, donde se dicen cosas vacías de contenido, ¿cómo estás? Tanto tiempo, cuando nos reunimos a tomar unas copas?, te veo bien, me alegro de este encuentro, ya te llamaré,……

Pero no fue esa mi actitud cuando a alguno de mis seres cercanos, pasaron por esos mismos laberintos. Por lo contrario, allí estuve, más que nunca y listo para ayudar.

Solamente me queda mi fantasía, pero hasta ella me abandono. Amigos que ya no lo son, padres que han muerto, seudos admiradores de esos que, ante mi primer tropiezo, huyen, para no ser alcanzados por ese estado.

Como esos seres despreciables que, en una esquina, detienen sus autos en espera del semáforo verde, y se acerca un indigente a pedirles un billete. Bajan sus ventanillas polarizadas, solo un poco, para pasarles billetes de baja numeración. Pero no hay nada de digno en ese acto es solo una especie de santificación autoproclamada. La indiferencia y la apatía, son síntomas de esta nueva sociedad. Siempre he pensado que el no ver al otro en desgracia, dándoles una miserable limosna no hace honor a su significado, que deviene del latín y significa “misericordia” que a su vez significa: la disposición a compadecerse de los sufrimientos y miserias ajenas.

Sin duda que lo que escribo, tiene relación directa con los actos políticos, que, en mi país, lamentablemente, puso como presidente a un personaje siniestro. Cuyo único fin, más allá de su increíble lejanía de la realidad(literalmente) somete al pueblo a la perdida absoluta de sus derechos y a la pobreza planificada, levantando banderas de la libertad (cuya significación “es la posibilidad de actuar por voluntad propia”) me pregunto, ¿cómo se puede ejercer voluntad propia, cuando millones de personas comen una sola vez al día, en el mejor de los casos?

No era mi intención, cuando comencé a escribir dicho relato, llegar a la realidad política de mi país.

Pero debe haber, y sin duda lo hay, que mucho de mi ahogo, está relacionado a los hechos de estos últimos casi, 6 meses.

Hay una frase que dice que el problema de uno es solo de la persona que lo sufre. No estoy seguro que sea exactamente como lo escribí. Pero me da el pase para hacerme otra pregunta:

En caso que mi problema sea importante, ¿eso me auto excluye, en pensar en aquellos que sufren problemas mayores?

La respuesta es NO.

Pero hagamos un acto de conciencia colectiva. No seguimos con nuestras vidas, ¿sabiendo que Palestina está siendo masacrada impunemente? ¿No seguimos con nuestras vidas sabiendo que gran parte de África, desde tiempos eternos, está sometida al hambre y las enfermedades?

Algo mucho más cercano, ¿caminamos frente a personas en situación de calle, evadiendo sus miradas?

La lista es interminable.

Habrá muros que nos separen de aquello que no queremos ver, pero cada día deberán ser más altos y más gruesos. Es inevitable que los mismos, caigan por el tronar de las voces que hoy no queremos escuchar.

The Virus

Dubbed undetectable, I can’t kill

The people you touch, and I can’t

Blur your view

Of the pansies you’ve planted

Outside the window, meaning

I can’t kill the pansies, but I want to.

I want them dying, and I want

To do the killing. I want you

To heed that I’m still here

Just beneath your skin and in

Each organ

The way anger dwells in a man

Who studies the history of his nation.

If I can’t leave you

Dead, I’ll have

You vexed. Look. Look

Again: show me the color

Of your flowers now

-Jericho Brown

Vespula vulgaris is a eusocial vespid that builds its tan paper nest in or on a structure capable of supporting it. A founding queen searches for a hollow tree, wall cavity, rock crevice, or even a mammal-made hole to build a nest. One colony cycle lasts for about 6–11 months and each colony cycle produces around 3000–8000 larvae.

The extraordinary adaptation skills of V. vulgaris enable it to live in a wide range of habitats, from very humid areas to artificial environments such as gardens and human structures. This species, along with other wasp species such as V. germanica, has impacted the ecosystem, especially those in New Zealand and Australia, where they were imported by humans, and frequently cause damage to fruit crops and endanger humans.

Adult workers of V. vulgaris measure about 12–17 mm (0.5–0.7 in) from head to tip of abdomen, and weigh 84.1 ± 19.0 mg, whereas the queen is about 20 mm (0.8 in) long. It has aposematic colors of black and yellow; yellow pronotal bands which are almost parallel to each other and black dots and rings on its abdomen. The queens and workers appear very similar to Vespula germanica, except when they are seen head on, as the V. vulgaris face lacks the three black dots of V. germanica. Instead, each has only one black mark on its clypeus, which is usually anchor or dagger-shaped. This applies to queens and workers only. In addition, identification of this species may be difficult because the black mark on its clypeus can sometimes appear broken, making it again look similar to V. germanica. It is prudent to use multiple identifying characteristics and if in any doubt to consult experts.

Still more difficult to distinguish between species are the males. Almost undetectable with the naked eye, the only confident identification of V. vulgaris males is to seek the distinct aedeagus tip shapes and lateral processes of their genitalia.

A tiny Bee, endemic to Australia, pollinating a white Salvia floret. There are dozens of them around the blue and white flower spikes every day and it's such a pleasure to see !

Blue and cream Petunias in the background.

Vespula vulgaris is a eusocial vespid that builds its tan paper nest in or on a structure capable of supporting it. A founding queen searches for a hollow tree, wall cavity, rock crevice, or even a mammal-made hole to build a nest. One colony cycle lasts for about 6–11 months and each colony cycle produces around 3000–8000 larvae.

The extraordinary adaptation skills of V. vulgaris enable it to live in a wide range of habitats, from very humid areas to artificial environments such as gardens and human structures. This species, along with other wasp species such as V. germanica, has impacted the ecosystem, especially those in New Zealand and Australia, where they were imported by humans, and frequently cause damage to fruit crops and endanger humans.

Adult workers of V. vulgaris measure about 12–17 mm (0.5–0.7 in) from head to tip of abdomen, and weigh 84.1 ± 19.0 mg, whereas the queen is about 20 mm (0.8 in) long. It has aposematic colors of black and yellow; yellow pronotal bands which are almost parallel to each other and black dots and rings on its abdomen. The queens and workers appear very similar to Vespula germanica, except when they are seen head on, as the V. vulgaris face lacks the three black dots of V. germanica. Instead, each has only one black mark on its clypeus, which is usually anchor or dagger-shaped. This applies to queens and workers only. In addition, identification of this species may be difficult because the black mark on its clypeus can sometimes appear broken, making it again look similar to V. germanica. It is prudent to use multiple identifying characteristics and if in any doubt to consult experts.

Still more difficult to distinguish between species are the males. Almost undetectable with the naked eye, the only confident identification of V. vulgaris males is to seek the distinct aedeagus tip shapes and lateral processes of their genitalia.

It's alligator mating season and there's lot of bellowing going on. The sound can be heard long way off and it is of such low (quoted from online)frequency that it makes the water dance over the gator's back. This “water dance” is the result of such low frequency vibrations that they are undetectable by the human ear, and the vibration then moves up into the throat to produce the audible roar. Females bellow or roar too, but they don't have the infrasonic ability to produce that deep deep sound. (Last paragraph is quoted from online source)

Cappadocia - Turkish

This little guy was almost undetectable at the very top of the inside of a cedar tree, I was able to find a very small opening in which to focus through, shooting upward at an 80% angle.

Thanks for viewing !

I love the concept of dormancy. Dormancy is a quiescent period where biological functions temporarily cease or slow to an undetectable level--kind of like a long heavy Rip Van Winkle nap. This level of peace and quiet is quite appealing to me. So appealing that I'm thinking of going dormant myself for a spell. However, Marg has other ideas about that--the chores still have to get done. Now, I'm off to shovel the snow out of the driveway.

Happy Slider's Sunday everyone.

Nevada City CA

My photos are FREE to use, just give me credit and it would be nice if you let me know, thanks.

I offer all of you, no matter what country you live in, what the colour of your skin or what faith you believe in, a toast. We are all the same in so many ways that we should not let small things prevent us from showing love to all. Happy New Year, love to everyone, everywhere, and above all, peace to all mankind.

The liquid is juice so for those that do not approve of alcohol, drink up.

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Total number of views for me are: 421,305,113 +, thanks to everyone for all the visits.

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Health Update: Most people know I have prostate cancer - 20 radiation treatments, a $1025 needle every 3 months for 2 years. The last needle will be January 6, they say it will be about a year before my energy levels are back (testosterone levels get better). The main reason my pictures have slowed down is that I have no energy, to walk a block I have to rest about 3-5 times.

I asked how will they know if things are good or bad, they say when PSA level goes to 2 they start looking. The level now is undetectable so the needles are working.

This is my 4th cancer, the first 3 were easy but this one is very mentally hard on me (energy levels) and 2 years.

Making really good night photographs is certainly achievable with the latest digital technologies, as is evidenced by the abundance of Milky Way Galaxy photos that are so popular now; but even so, with starlight being the only available light the night I made this photograph, my camera was being pushed to its limits. What helped the situation was all the fresh snow, which amplified the starlight, and making it possible to capture what little light was there. What was astonishing is that the lights from Yosemite Village were illuminating Yosemite Point, which was completely undetectable to the human eye. But the camera saw it! Don't you just love photography?

The uMhlanga lighthouse was completed in 1954. Construction was completed in four days and 19 hours. The circular concrete tower, painted white with a red band at the top, stands 21 metres above the beach and has a focal plane height of 25 metres. The fixed red light enables ships waiting to anchor in the outer anchorage, to monitor their position. If the red light is undetectable, the ship's anchors have probably dragged and are too close to shore. The lighthouse has never had an official ‘keeper’. The Oyster Box Hotel, which was built in 1869, has been the tower’s custodian. The construction of the lighthouse cost R23 838. There are 95 steps to the top of the uMhlanga Lighthouse.

cold ,,, that lack of passion..

hmmm an absence of emotion maybe ?

or simply a perception of senses ?

a realm described by insufficiency ?

amongst words, the worst of offenses

vague... confusion defeats anxiety !

a word so potent aimed for destruction

thrown in accusation so trivially ?!

cold ,,, a term implying immense pretenses

hmmm an unpleasant glacial inclemency ?

a conserved state within barbed fences ?

or is it just that frigid apathy ?

A deflection from normality..an aberration

is your perverted judgement concerning me ?

Religionless? Faithless? Paralyed defenses?

undetectable warmth? a deficient personality?

Was it meant to be said or was it senseless?

An expression so pungent, such brisk brutality

No ears you delude! why this deception?

cold ,,, that word you once threw at me

-MAK

Struthio camelus

Common name: Ostrich

Family: Struthionidae

Seen in the West Coast National Park, Langebaan, Western Cape, South Africa.

The ostrich is a member of a group of birds known as ratites, that is they are flightless birds without a keel to their breastbone. Of the 8,600 bird species which exist today, the ostrich is the largest. The humped body of the male is covered in black patches and the wings and tail are tipped with white. The female is brown and white. These huge birds, which sometimes reach a height of 2.6 m and a weight of 135 kg, cannot fly, but are very fast runners.

The Ostrich is farmed around the world, particularly for its feathers, which are decorative and are also used for feather dusters. Its skin is used for leather and its meat marketed commercially.

Ostrich eggs are the largest of all eggs (and by extension, the yolk is the largest single cell), though they are actually the smallest eggs relative to the size of the bird.

The eggs are incubated by the females by day and by the male by night. This uses the colouration of the two sexes to escape detection of the nest, as the drab female blends in with the sand, while the black male is nearly undetectable in the night. The incubation period is 35 to 45 days. Typically, the male will defend the hatchlings, and teach them how and on what to feed.

The life span of an Ostrich is from 30 to 70 years, with 50 being typical.

On Explore September 24, 2008 #366

'Pandora's Cluster' (NIRCam Image) by JWST

NASA’s Webb Uncovers New Details in Pandora’s Cluster

Astronomers have revealed the latest deep field image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, featuring never-before-seen details in a region of space known as Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744). Webb’s view displays three clusters of galaxies – already massive – coming together to form a megacluster. The combined mass of the galaxy clusters creates a powerful gravitational lens, a natural magnification effect of gravity, allowing much more distant galaxies in the early universe to be observed by using the cluster like a magnifying glass.

Caption

Astronomers estimate 50,000 sources of near-infrared light are represented in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their light has travelled through varying distances to reach the telescope’s detectors, representing the vastness of space in a single image. A foreground star in our own galaxy, to the right of the image center, displays Webb’s distinctive diffraction spikes. Bright white sources surrounded by a hazy glow are the galaxies of Pandora’s Cluster, a conglomeration of already-massive clusters of galaxies coming together to form a megacluster. The concentration of mass is so great that the fabric of spacetime is warped by gravity, creating an effect that makes the region of special interest to astronomers: a natural, super-magnifying glass called a “gravitational lens” that they can use to see very distant sources of light beyond the cluster that would otherwise be undetectable, even to Webb.

These lensed sources appear red in the image, and often as elongated arcs distorted by the gravitational lens. Many of these are galaxies from the early universe, with their contents magnified and stretched out for astronomers to study. Other red sources in the image have yet to be confirmed by follow-up observations with Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument to determine their true nature. One intriguing example is an extremely compact source that appears as a tiny red dot, despite the magnifying effect of the gravitational lens. One possibility is that the dot is a supermassive black hole in the early universe. NIRSpec data will provide both distance measurements and compositional details of selected sources, providing a wealth of previously-inaccessible information about the universe and how it has evolved over time.

Credits

SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ivo Labbe (Swinburne), Rachel Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh)

IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

The rink at Riverbank State Park on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, strangely built above a wastewater treatment plant whose odors are thankfully undetectable when the temperature is in the 20’s.

- www.kevin-palmer.com - The last climbers rappelled down the south face of Devils Tower soon after twilight faded. First Perseus rose to the northeast, followed by Arcturus, the 4th brightest star in the sky. Satellites slowly came and went while meteors vaporized at a much faster speed. The aurora painted its colors on an invisible canvas, undetectable to my eye for the most part. One glow soon replaced another when the crescent moon rose at midnight. In many previous visits I’ve scouted all over the national monument looking for the best vantage points. This patch of prairie that I marked on my map is barely within the park boundary. Dodging deadfall, making my way across a steep slope and up and over a cliff is hard enough during the day, doubly so at night. I kept waiting for a big aurora display to give me a reason to come back here. That never happened, despite the forecast. But even an ordinary night is worth experiencing at an extraordinary place like this. Those who only visit Devils Tower during the day miss out on half the scenery.

Bad photo, but an amazing event. Yesterday I went to the Minas Basin for the migration of the semipalmated sandpipers – an annual highlight of my summers in Nova scotia.

At first the beach looks completely covered in pebbles, but then, the keen observer notes that the pebbles are moving and the air is full of delicate cheeps. As the tide gradually creeps out (and it’s that amazing 50-foot Bay of Fundy tide I keep going on about) the pebbles separate and become hundreds of thousands of miniature birds. They’re here for the annual smorgasbord - the semipalmated sandpiper version of Burning Man – which happens every August, when the tiny mud shrimp are at their most succulent and plentiful.

The birds arrive in swarms from the Arctic and stop off here, on this specific beach at Grand Pre. to “feed up” on their way to South America for the winter. It has been this way for centuries; the Acadians recorded the event in the 1600’s. These tiny creatures will roughly double their weight over a couple of weeks, in preparation for the 72 hour, non-stop, transoceanic flight along their well established flyway. On the way back in the spring, the favored spot is Delaware Beach in New Jersey where the horseshoe crabs are spawning.

The birds’ main business on this beach is resting and feeding, but occasionally, on a whim, they will fly. And that mass movement is one of the most awesome sights I’ve seen in nature – awesome and incapable of being photographed, at least with my poor equipment.

In response to some mysterious and undetectable signal, from somewhere within their midst, they will rise as one and suddenly the beach is completely bare and the air is alive with a whir of tiny bodies, soaring and turning in a perfectly choreographed ballet that lasts for mere moments. How on earth do they know when to change direction? But change they do, exposing their glowing white undersides to the sun in simultaneous splendor – much like a long, shimmering silk scarf being swirled across the horizon of the sea.

Interesting side note…. Like many birds, the sandpipers mate for life. But they fly south with friends, live separately in South America (mainly French Guyana and Brazil where, apparently social mores are pretty lax) and then reconnect with their mates 3,000 miles later, back on the Arctic tundra when the holiday is over and it’s time to make the babies.

Vespula vulgaris is a eusocial vespid that builds its tan paper nest in or on a structure capable of supporting it. A founding queen searches for a hollow tree, wall cavity, rock crevice, or even a mammal-made hole to build a nest. One colony cycle lasts for about 6–11 months and each colony cycle produces around 3000–8000 larvae.

The extraordinary adaptation skills of V. vulgaris enable it to live in a wide range of habitats, from very humid areas to artificial environments such as gardens and human structures. This species, along with other wasp species such as V. germanica, has impacted the ecosystem, especially those in New Zealand and Australia, where they were imported by humans, and frequently cause damage to fruit crops and endanger humans.

Adult workers of V. vulgaris measure about 12–17 mm (0.5–0.7 in) from head to tip of abdomen, and weigh 84.1 ± 19.0 mg, whereas the queen is about 20 mm (0.8 in) long. It has aposematic colors of black and yellow; yellow pronotal bands which are almost parallel to each other and black dots and rings on its abdomen. The queens and workers appear very similar to Vespula germanica, except when they are seen head on, as the V. vulgaris face lacks the three black dots of V. germanica. Instead, each has only one black mark on its clypeus, which is usually anchor or dagger-shaped. This applies to queens and workers only. In addition, identification of this species may be difficult because the black mark on its clypeus can sometimes appear broken, making it again look similar to V. germanica. It is prudent to use multiple identifying characteristics and if in any doubt to consult experts.

Still more difficult to distinguish between species are the males. Almost undetectable with the naked eye, the only confident identification of V. vulgaris males is to seek the distinct aedeagus tip shapes and lateral processes of their genitalia.

Here are seven things you might not have known about the uMhlanga Lighthouse:

1. The uMhlanga lighthouse was completed in 1954.

2. Construction was completed in four days and 19 hours.

3. The circular concrete tower, painted white with a red band at the top, stands 21 meters above the beach and has a focal plane height of 25 meters.

4. he fixed red light enables ships waiting to anchor in the outer anchorage, to monitor its position. If the red light is undetectable, it suggests the ship's anchors have probably dragged and is too close to shore.

5. The lighthouse has never had an official ‘keeper’. The Oyster Box Hotel, which was built in 1869, has been the tower’s custodian.

6. The construction of the lighthouse cost R23 838.

7. There are 95 steps to the top of the uMhlanga Lighthouse.

Info source URL: northglennews.co.za/…/7-cool-facts-umhlanga-lighth…/

=========

Photo capture date & Location: 2014-06 uMhlanga Rocks

If all goes as it did last winter, this female Great Horned Owl will soon be nesting. The male flew in above the female to the thicker pine needles and was absolutely undetectable with binos and camera lens.

Other than the little people that I did for day sixty's self portrait, this is the first man in a drawing to go into the portfolio for a very long time.

For some reason I've always had a much more difficult time drawing men than women. I'm not completely certain why that is, but it has always been that way. I think it's because women are so much easier to draw, anatomically. Especially with the kind of subjects I draw. Just stuff their legs under a skirt and not worry about it; corseted waists can easily hide problems with figure rendering. Easy.

With men, you've got legs to deal with. Ack. Too often have I drawn men that look so weak-kneed they look like dead marionette puppets.

Also, I can distance myself with the women, but with the men they tend to be drawn with loads of personal feelings poured into them. If I feel rotten, the guy I draw feels rotten. If I'm feeling saucy, the guy in the drawing is almost too, umm, saucy looking. I suppose I just want to draw somebody I can relate to. I think I did that with this one. When I drew this guy, I was feeling relaxed. I think he feels relaxed too.

It’s all down. Everything. No phone, no internet, no computers. The cloud is gone. Not down…. The cloud is gone.

Go ahead - ponder that… no banking, no government. There is no flow of information - so finance and government authority will cease to exist. They all evaporate - they cannot exist with out sand. Silicon chips are the foundation of our modern civilization. When the visiting fungal spores finish their work of deteriorating all the silica based media on the planet - it’s all down. Everything.

Our entire modern civilization was built on the incorrect assumption that integrated circuits chips are indestructible. But there is an enemy - and it’s likely not of this earth. Cladosporium cladosporioides and penicillium chrysogenum are examples of what the enemies could be. Fungi spores.

Living spores have been found in every level of earth’s atmosphere. Fungi spores are electron-dense and can survive in the vacuum of space. Their outer layer is actually metallic and it naturally allows the spores to deflect ultraviolet light. The outer shell of the spore is the hardest organic compound to exist in nature. The fungal enemy of our civilization has been floating in space for who know how many millions or billions of years - waiting for it’s appointment with the planet earth to do the greatest reset imaginable.

It’s beginnings are slow and undetectable. Once it breaks the tipping point it will spread throughout the earth - 1 day - 24 hours after the inoculation point has been reached, hyphae will grow and quickly cover the entire integrated circuit media, rendering it unable to perform it’s intended functions. Once the inoculation point has been reached - the end of the IC’s useful life will be counted in hours - not weeks or months. When will it begin? No one can predict for sure - but the early signs are already present. No one can stop it. Very few even have even heard of it. Those in the know won’t speak of it - because there is no back up plan. No one can design and implement an alternative material that could replace the current integrated circuit board. Their only hope is that they are wrong.

Imagine your world when the earth goes silent. Almost all the noise you now hear will cease. No authorities will be giving you instructions. Only those who connect with their physical neighbors and work together will survive more than a week or two. The internet will be dead. Your phone and computer will be dead. There will be no news reports. Chip dependent devices - including all manufacturing equipment and motor vehicles will be dead. Nothing will return to normal.

Waiting for it means your death will come much sooner and there will be no hope for you. Only those who act quickly and boldly will survive. Even then the odds will be against you.

“everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

The next edition will be “what now?” Gather with your tribe now and help answer that question.

Substack Page: open.substack.com/pub/danmichaels/p/tribes-rising?r=16ers...

Youtube Video: youtu.be/8M4FvXd3DcQ

Engine Company 31 -87 Lafayette Street

In 1879 Napoleon LeBrun became the official architect of the New York City Fire Department. When son Pierre joined him the firm became N. LeBrun & Son. LeBrun would produce 42 structures for the fire department before stepping down in 1895.But he went out with a splash.

In 1894 N. LeBrun & Son drew plans for a lavish new home for Engine Company 31, which had been situated at No. 116 Leonard Street.But first the architects had to deal with a logistical nightmare.

The site where the new firehouse was to be built was atop a filled-in body of water called Collect Pond.In the 18th century the pond covered 48 acres and, in spots,was up to 60 feet deep.What had been a popular place for picnics in the summer and ice skating in the winter became polluted and odorous when tanneries, slaughterhouses and other nearby business dumped their waste here.Derided at the end of the 18th century as "a very sink and common sewer," it was slowly filled. By 1813,the entire lake was undetectable.At least on the surface.

Below ground the water remained.LeBrun's solution was to drive immense wooden pilings below ground on which the foundation of the firehouse would sit.He knew,as was proved in Venice,that as long as the pilings remained submerged they would remain stable.

For Engine Company 31 he turned to the Loire Valley of France for inspiration.Looking more like chateau than firehouse it was completed in 1896 at a cost of $80,000--more than $2.3 million today.A mountainous slate-shingled roof erupted above two stories of limestone and brick.Bold dormers,more than a story tall, were worthy of Fountainebleau.

While it was admittedly beautiful,some contemporary critics found it a bit much.In The Architectural Record, Montgomery Schuyler strongly questioned what elegance had to do "with so grimly practical business as putting out fires."And the Real Estate Record &Guide called it a "manifestly extravagant absurdity.

Both detractors seemed to be foreshadowing the 20th century architectural principle of "form follows function"which resulted in firehouses being no more interesting than a suburban garage.

Engine Company 31 called 87 Lafayette Street home until the Fire Department abandoned it in late 1972,just ten months after it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.It sat neglected and empty for seven years before Downtown Community Television rented space from the city there.The in 1983,DCTV purchased the building along with the Chinese-American Planning Council for $400,000.

The new owners bought an expensive problem.Over the years the long forgotten Collect Pond had begun drying up.The water level below the street fell which caused the pilings to dry out and begin to rot.LeBrun's elegant chateau began settling unevenly as the pilings eroded. The entire foundation had to be reconstructed at a cost of almost $800,000.

Additional costly restoration has taken place,bringing No.87 Lafayette Street back to its former glory.The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission noted in 1966 "the quality of its detail and in the use of fine materials it is unsurpassed by any building in its category."

Absurdly extravagant or not,I prefer LeBrun's Loire Valley chateau to a suburban garage.

The uMhlanga lighthouse was completed in 1954. Construction was completed in four days and 19 hours. The circular concrete tower, painted white with a red band at the top, stands 21 metres above the beach and has a focal plane height of 25 metres. The fixed red light enables ships waiting to anchor in the outer anchorage, to monitor their position. If the red light is undetectable, the ship's anchors have probably dragged and are too close to shore. The lighthouse has never had an official ‘keeper’. The Oyster Box Hotel, which was built in 1869, has been the tower’s custodian. The construction of the lighthouse cost R23 838. There are 95 steps to the top of the uMhlanga Lighthouse.

The Blacktron BT-56 Ravager Interdiction Assault Fighter is a powerhouse in Blacktron’s fighter arsenal.

Ravager Assault Fighters are war machines and as such boast some of Blacktron’s most advanced technology. Its hull is coated in microdiffracted carbon to absorb all visible radiation. When in stealth mode, the craft is virtually undetectable to enemy sensors. When in combat, this also makes them particularly difficult for attackers to achieve a clean target lock.

Reversed engineered alien technology is at the heart of the Ravagers powering not only sublight and FTL engines but their quad Tetryon cannons. To round-out the starfighters’ armament, each are equipped with no less than 6 high-yield Neutronic missiles. You do not want to be at the business end of this fighter.

Astronomers estimate 50 000 sources of near-infrared light are represented in this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Their light has travelled through various distances to reach the telescope’s detectors, representing the vastness of space in a single image. A foreground star in our own galaxy, to the right of the image centre, displays Webb’s distinctive diffraction spikes. Bright white sources surrounded by a hazy glow are the galaxies of Pandora’s Cluster, a conglomeration of already-massive clusters of galaxies coming together to form a mega cluster. The concentration of mass is so great that the fabric of spacetime is warped by gravity, creating a natural, super-magnifying glass called a 'gravitational lens' that astronomers can use to see very distant sources of light beyond the cluster that would otherwise be undetectable, even to Webb.

These lensed sources appear red in the image, and often as elongated arcs distorted by the gravitational lens. Many of these are galaxies from the early universe, with their contents magnified and stretched out for astronomers to study. Other red sources in the image have yet to be confirmed by follow-up observations with Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument to determine their true nature. One intriguing example is an extremely compact source that appears as a tiny red dot, despite the magnifying effect of the gravitational lens. One possibility is that the dot is a supermassive black hole in the early universe. NIRSpec data will provide both distance measurements and compositional details of selected sources, providing a wealth of previously-inaccessible information about the universe and how it has evolved over time.

[Image Description: A crowded galaxy field on a black background, with one large star dominating the image just right of center. Three areas are concentrated with larger white hazy blobs on the left, lower right, and upper right above the single star. Scattered between these areas are many smaller sources of light; some also have a hazy white glow, while many other are red or orange.]

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, I. Labbe (Swinburne University of Technology), R. Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh), A. Pagan (STScI)

In the first longitudinal study of its kind, scientists analysed the immune response of more than 90 patients and healthcare workers at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust and found levels of antibodies that can destroy the virus peaked about three weeks after the onset of symptoms then swiftly declined.

Blood tests revealed that while 60% of people marshalled a “potent” antibody response at the height of their battle with the virus, only 17% retained the same potency three months later. Antibody levels fell as much as 23-fold over the period. In some cases, they became undetectable.

A few days later and now there's a swarm. It is amazing how much these flowers actually resemble bees in flight, especially when viewed from the side. Even the pollen sacs form eyes. In most species, the flowers emit a fragrance (undetectable by us) that mimics the pheromone profile of a species-specific female bee which causes the males to go into a mating frenzy with the flowers and subsequently pollinating them.

Valhallan Environmentally Specialized Enhanced Infantry offer the Berk Military Full Spectrum Dominance over any battlefield

DIG-KING: Viking Subterranean Assault Male Power Armor. Equipped with a massive Boulder Buster Drill, the DIG-KING is unsurpassed at siege-breaking. Rapidly tunneling up underneath the world’s most impregnable fortresses and unleashing the flames of hell itself with its Vulcan Inferno Flame Thrower! And cleaving his enemies asunder with its True Viking Axe!

FOREST-KING Viking Woodland Male Power Armor. The primary role of the FOREST-KING is Forward Reconnaissance/Communications Disruption, but it also doubles as a Heavy Sniper Unit. This Armor boasts a plethora of weapon systems. Starting with the shoulder mounted Anti-Raven Countermeasures. The Rocket Boosted Ballista. And the standard issue Ghillie Suit renders this mecha nearly undetectable right up until you are torn apart by this Viking’s brutal Bushwhacker Chainsaw Shield!

STORMCRACKER Jet Valkyrie Female Power Armor!

Lighter! Faster! Sleeker! Sexier! Aaaannd Shinier! The STORMCRACKER ARMOR is the Valhallan Pride of the Skies! Rocketing Straight through the heart of the Maelstrom. These Fearless Valkyries Rain down death on their enemies with Explosive Spears! Shield Splintering Swords, Target locking missiles. And even the Armor’s built in capacitors capture the fury of the storms they ride and release those bolts on any friend or foe who makes the mistake of getting too familiar.

Alias: Grey Ghost

Name: Sam Black

Powers: Phasing, Invisibility, Minor Shapeshifting. He has also been known to use a "force choke" as an interrogation/combat technique, phasing his hand through a victim's throat and crushing their windpipe from the inside.

Samuel Black was always a shy person. Following a freak lab accident, he found himself able to rearrange his molecular structure, allowing him to pass though walls and become invisible. As the Grey Ghost, Sam is an expert marksman and spy, undetectable by most security methods. However, his power is also a horrible curse. Sam must always wear a molecular stabilizer in the form of a mask over his mouth and chest. If he were to ever take it off, he would dissolve into nothingness In a matter of minutes.

I overheard that you can replace old entries with better versions you've made, so I decided to do just that. :P (Since this is technically my first entry, I still have another coming)

Drune Whitechapel

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cloud%20Lake/99/101/394

Lyrics

MRS. LOVETT:

Seems a downright shame...

TODD: Shame?

LOVETT:

Seems an awful waste...

Such a nice, plump frame

Wot's 'is name has...

Had...

Has!

Nor it can't be traced...

Bus'ness needs a lift,

Debts to be erased...

Think of it as thrift,

As a gift,

If you get my drift!

No?

Seems an awful waste...

I mean, with the price of meat

What it is,

When you get it,

If you get it...

TODD: HAH!

LOVETT:

Good, you got it!

Take, for instance, Mrs. Mooney and her pie shop!

Bus'ness never better using only pussycats and toast!

And a pussy's good for maybe six or seven at the most!

And I'm sure they can't compare as far as taste!

TODD:

Mrs. Lovett, what a charming notion

LOVETT:

Well, it does seem a waste...

TODD:

Eminently practical

And yet appropriate as always!

LOVETT:

It's an idea...

TODD:

Mrs. Lovett, how I've lived

Without you all these years, I'll never know!

How delectable!

Also undetectable!

LOVETT:

Think about it!

Lots of other gentlemen'll

Soon be comin' for a shave,

Won't they?

Think of

All them

Pies!

TODD:

How choice!

How

Rare!

TODD:

For what's the sound of the world out there?

LOVETT:

What, Mr. Todd?

What, Mr. Todd?

What is that sound?

TODD:

Those crunching noises pervading the air!

LOVETT:

Yes, Mr. Todd!

Yes, Mr. Todd!

Yes, all around!

TODD:

It's man devouring man, my dear!

BOTH:

And [LOVETT: Then] who are we to deny it in here?

TODD: (spoken) These are desperate times,

Mrs. Lovett, and desperate measures are called for!

LOVETT: Here we are, now! Hot out of the oven!

TODD: What is that?

LOVETT:

It's priest. Have a little priest.

TODD:

Is it really good?

LOVETT:

Sir, it's too good, at least!

Then again, they don't commit sins of the flesh,

So it's pretty fresh.

TODD:

Awful lot of fat.

LOVETT:

Only where it sat.

TODD:

Haven't you got poet, or something like that?

LOVETT:

No, y'see, the trouble with poet is

'Ow do you know it's deceased?

Try the priest!

TODD: (spoken) Heavenly!

Not as hearty as bishop, perhaps,

But then again, not as bland as curate, either!

LOVETT:

And good for business, too -- always leaves you wantin' more!

Trouble is, we only get it on Sundays!

Lawyer's rather nice.

TODD:

If it's for a price.

LOVETT:

Order something else, though, to follow,

Since no one should swallow it twice!

TODD:

Anything that's lean.

LOVETT:

Well, then, if you're British and loyal,

You might enjoy Royal Marine!

Anyway, it's clean.

Though of course, it tastes of wherever it's been!

TODD:

Is that squire,

On the fire?

LOVETT:

Mercy no, sir, look closer,

You'll notice it's grocer!

TODD:

Looks thicker,

More like vicar!

LOVETT:

No, it has to be grocer --

It's green!

TODD:

The history of the world, my love --

LOVETT:

Save a lot of graves,

Do a lot of relatives favors!

TODD:

Is those below serving those up above!

LOVETT:

Ev'rybody shaves,

So there should be plenty of flavors!

TODD:

How gratifying for once to know

BOTH:

That those above will serve those down below!

LOVETT: (spoken) Now let's see, here... We've got tinker.

TODD: Something... pinker.

LOVETT: Tailor?

TODD: Paler.

LOVETT: Butler?

TODD: Subtler.

LOVETT: Potter?

TODD: Hotter.

LOVETT: Locksmith?

Lovely bit of clerk.

TODD:

Maybe for a lark.

LOVETT:

Then again there's sweep

If you want it cheap

And you like it dark!

Try the financier,

Peak of his career!

TODD:

That looks pretty rank.

LOVETT:

Well, he drank,

It's a bank

Cashier.

Never really sold.

Maybe it was old.

TODD:

Have you any Beadle?

LOVETT:

Next week, so I'm told!

Beadle isn't bad till you smell it and

Notice 'ow well it's been greased...

Stick to priest!

Now then, this might be a little bit stringy,

But then of course it's... fiddle player!

TODD: No, this isn't fiddle player -- it's piccolo player!

LOVETT: 'Ow can you tell?

TODD: It's piping hot!

LOVETT: Then blow on it first!

TODD:

The history of the world, my sweet --

LOVETT:

Oh, Mr. Todd,

Ooh, Mr. Todd,

What does it tell?

TODD:

Is who gets eaten, and who gets to eat!

LOVETT:

And, Mr. Todd,

Too, Mr. Todd,

Who gets to sell!

TODD:

But fortunately, it's also clear

BOTH:

That [L: But] ev'rybody goes down well with beer!

LOVETT: (spoken)

Since marine doesn't appeal to you, 'ow about... rear admiral?

TODD: Too salty. I prefer general.

LOVETT: With, or without his privates? "With" is extra.

TODD: What is that?

LOVETT:

It's fop.

Finest in the shop.

And we have some shepherd's pie peppered

With actual shepherd on top!

And I've just begun --

Here's the politician, so oily

It's served with a doily,

Have one!

TODD:

Put it on a bun.

Well, you never know if it's going to run!

LOVETT:

Try the friar,

Fried, it's drier!

TODD:

No, the clergy is really

Too coarse and too mealy!

LOVETT:

Then actor,

That's compacter!

TODD:

Yes, and always arrives overdone!

I'll come again when you have JUDGE on the menu!

LOVETT: (spoken) Wait! True, we don't have judge yet,

But we've got something you might fancy even better.

TODD: What's that?

LOVETT: Executioner!

TODD:

Have charity towards the world, my pet!

LOVETT:

Yes, yes, I know, my love!

TODD:

We'll take the customers that we can get!

LOVETT:

High-born and low, my love!

TODD:

We'll not discriminate great from small!

No, we'll serve anyone,

Meaning anyone,

BOTH:

And to anyone

At all!

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Stephen Sondheim

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqpyPKx0Oao

A life threatening, system crumbling cybernetic plague, VIROT is a virus designed on the bacteriophage of eons past. This computer devourer is able to infect a hero’s core and either reprogram them for evil or shut them down for good.

Type A, the infection type, is small, nearly undetectable, with an emphasis on its rapid replication. Type B phages are a larger mutation that carry microscopic incision equipment used to inject nanites. These nano machines either act as miniature explosives, irreversibly damaging the hero’s Quaza Core, or act to change the materials within core, turning it into ANTI-QUAZA and sending the hero into a downward spiral of evil.

Hero Factory. We build H̷e̷r̷o̷e̷s̷ ……. Villains

Built for Hero February 2023

This colourful image is a topography map of a portion of the region known as Terra Sirenum, located in the southern hemisphere of Mars. The map is colour-coded, with reds and whites representing the highest topography and blues and purples the lowest.

The images shows a myriad of terrain types including cliffs, impact craters, channels carved into steep slopes, wrinkled ridges and scarps, which together reflect a rich geological history.

Perhaps the most prominent feature is the portion of uneven chaotic terrain towards the centre of the image. This is Atlantis Chaos, a lowland plain covering around 170 km by 145 km and containing a few hundred small peaks and flat-topped hills. They are thought to result from the slow erosion of a once-continuous solid plateau.

A number of impact craters occupy the scene and span a range of ages, with the most ancient with almost undetectable rims that have eroded over time. Indeed, the outline of the giant Atlantis Basin is hard to see, but lies at the centre of the image and spans over 200 km. It is connected to another large basin located further south (left) with a diameter of 175 km.

Scientists suspect that some of the craters and basins in this area may have once contained standing water. Indeed, channels carved into the slopes of the ancient basins provide evidence for the existence of water in this region’s past.

Explore this region in more detail in a new video, published today.

This image is a mosaic of four images taken by the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera on 28 December 2008, 29 December 2008, 6 February 2009 and 5 January 2014. The image resolution is roughly 14 m per pixel. Read more about this region here.

Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGA)

Nikon FM, 28mm 2.8D, Cinestill 50.

The original, scanned at 4000dpi is 5114x3403. So that's ... what, about 16mp. The grain is ... almost ... undetectable. It's clearly softer than a digital shot, but not grossly worse, just ... different.

The only snowflake in yesterday’s wonderful snowfalls that showed any prominent “thin film interference” colours, and right in the center. View large and read on!

We’ve had some very warm weather lately so the last images I’ve been posting were from my “archives”. Snowflakes that that never got around to editing that were photographed in the past, even though I try to keep the series as current as possible. They’d never been previously seen, but they weren’t necessarily “fresh”. I have over now over 800 snowflakes that I have not edited. If global warming sets in, fear not – this series, at least, can continue. :)

Yesterday, we got our first snowfall of the year that gave large elaborate crystals mixed in with small snowflakes with unique characters. I shot plenty of both and I’ll be sharing them over the coming days, but colourful crystals always get my attention first. The center of this snowflake is like a rainbow in the snow, so a good chunk of time today was spent focus stacking and editing this snowflake to showcase its beauty from tip to tip.

“Thin film interference” plays out when a snowflake has two layers of ice that are very thin, usually created by a bubble or cavity forming in the ice. A full primer can be found here (skycrystals.ca/img/optical-interference-pages.jpg ) but in this case it’s because the snowflake split itself in two. The very center reveals solid ice, but when things get lighter it’s because a bubble has formed based on the “branching instability”, the same physics that causes branches to from the corners also causes the center of facets to grow slower. As the edges of the facet expand more, the center is left behind, and two new layers of ice are formed. If the thickness is just right, light reflecting off of different layers of ice can interfere with eachother out of sync, creating the colours you see.

As the thickness of the ice changes, so too does the colour we see. This brings up a curious question: why do the colours deviate where each branch begins? Why does the pattern change in these areas?

The pattern changes because the thickness of the ice changes; a logical deduction. This is the “how”, but what of the “why”? It’s the first I’ve seen thin film interference present itself this way, but it stands to reason that the corners of the plates growing outward were also growing thicker. This is how “ribs” are formed encircling the center of a snowflake, which causes many fun features including inward crystal growth – if you’ve been following along with previous posts you’ll nod, if you haven’t here’s some clues: skycrystals.ca/img/circles-in-the-snow.jpg

If conditions were subtle enough to cause the corners to get thicker but not the full width of the facet, you’d see something like this. It’s undetectable any other way that with the colours from the optical interference. If you need proof that corners can grow faster vertically than other parts of a snowflake, I’m happy to provide that to you as well: www.flickr.com/photos/donkom/16781523325/

There are a ton of mysteries in a single snowflake. All of these mysteries can be explained, even if I don’t have the ability to do so. The more challenging the explanation, the more fascinated I am with the winter gem I’ve discovered. For more snowflake science musings and all the photographic techniques required to make images like this, you’ll was to hold a copy of Sky Crystals in your hands: www.skycrystals.ca/book/ - it’s worth the read, and with the website in Canadian Dollars… anyone in the US can get the book for a steal right now! The exchange rate takes $10 off the price when paying in USD (as of this writing, CAD$44.99 = USD$34.34)

You can just see Daisy's cleavage pads here. If she places them right, they are pretty much undetectable. It didn't really matter with the dress she wore yesterday. But what is the rule? Expect the unexpected. A very slight slip, and I'm in a good mood, so we'll let it slide. Very lucky Daisy! 😉💖

Oberwald, Valais. Near the southern portal of the Furka Base Tunnel, Switzerland's most cost-overrunning tunnel.

T-shirt, overheated railroad car, ... and undetectable railcars!

Tinoro is a Toa of Sonics, a member of the Toa Toiri whose duty is to watch over the Ta-Matoran and their Kanoka Disks, ensuring their safety. She is discontent with her current task and believes her destiny is to achieve something much greater and more exciting. She hates the loud, rhythmical mechanical sounds of the Great Forge and often uses her powers to cancel out all the noise.

She uses her Morning Star to channel her powers, its sheer mass lets her create soundquakes, and she's skilled enough to power scream and create zones of silence. Her Kanohi Volitak allows her to further mask her sounds, camouflaging her and making her virtually undetectable.

Non-Aquatic Volitak by @galva_nize_

A repetitious blur, not infinite, but unfathomably finite.

Not really sure why I have such an obsession with shopping carts, ugly buildings or cracked asphalt. But every line seems like a vein, bloodless and devoid of its original intent. A sprawling mirage of structure, desperately waiting to come apart.

Shopping carts, ever present from the time of my youth and what feels like was eons before that. A tumbleweed of chromed steel effortlessly gliding across concrete in a high late summer wind, crashing into a car door, is the only time that fucker will ever head in a straight line. Maybe it’s a symbol of the great American capitalist boom, you know those short years tucked in between an emerging recession and “four more years”, but the regime never changes. And no matter what people need something to eat, something to wear, something to watch, and something to watch in on.

I used to see far more shopping carts, when there were far more stores, and malls too. The image I have in mind, a representation given to someplace once real, will be something different shortly, maybe it will be the click of a button and delivery truck, but it’s pretty much the same thing, just not visually.

The same can be said for ugly buildings, especially the ones purpose built or franchised, that lay to waste or are repurposed then, once again laid to waste, these buildings have a tremble in their structure, a slow undetectable sway, a surging ache, brought on by every change of the weather, and every season compounds this, all buildings fear the rain, the cold and the snow. Oh these poor high western desert creatures of failing and crumbling foundations.

Cracked asphalt and roads, the great animal strategy of to and fro, a primal migration that became the great flow of commerce. Signs of a road can stay for a long, long time, that big heavy rut, but roads need a constant and a consistent maintenance, yet they still crack and long to go wayward.

Like 2nd Army, 3rd Army also had initial successes in containing the Soviet bridgeheads. Even large armored assaults launched on 3-4 July only resulted in minor extensions of the bridgehead, as opposed to the breakout the Stavka had hoped for. However, on the 6th it was decided to fall back to a secondary line of defense, given the threat of encirclement from the uncontained 9th Army to the north. The Soviets detected this withdrawal, and pushed back the defenders just as they were getting set up at their new line, forcing them into Chișinău. However, instead of pursuing the Romanians into the city streets as they had at Bălți, they proceeded to shell the city, destroying 65% of all buildings. Anticipating another encirclement, it was decided that the 17th and 19th Infantry Divisions would take up positions to the rear, holding the main road out of Chișinău, while the city itself would be held by the 18th Infantry Division and the Special Battalion "Vulturii"

The Special Battalion "Vulturii" was founded in 1937 by Colonel Emil Lupescu, a Great War veteran who had acted as a foreign observer in the British district of the International Settlement during the Battle of Shanghai. This elite infantry formation utilized a combination of Great War stormtrooper tactics and newer tactics based on Lupescu's observations on urban warfare. 3rd Army's commander told the Royal War Council that Vulturii tactics would turn Chișinău into the "Shanghai on the Bîc," an assertation that Lupescu would take offense to given how disastrous the Battle of Shanghai was for China. The battalion wore the standard infantry uniform, unusual for many special forces units of the time, but was better equipped, including having a higher concentration of submachineguns than any other unit and having a distinctive fighting knife.

The Vulturii guide for urban combat was as follows: "Stay away from the main streets themselves, save the occasional undetectable sniper position, Instead, focus troops in the side streets and alleyways that overlook the main streets, and ambush the enemy as they advance. When possible, organize troops into assault teams consisting of a platoon or, at most, a company, supported by a mortar, anti-tank or regimental gun to create self-sufficient pockets of resistance. When setting up positions inside buildings, choose buildings made of brick or concrete over wood, unless you want the building to collapse on you during a bombardment. Alternatively, the rubble of an already bombed out building can also give excellent cover and concealment. Avoid particularly stubborn enemy strongpoints, or neutralize them by cutting off their supplies and communications. Underground utility tunnels and even sewers can be used to discretely move troops about the battlefield and strike where the enemy least expects. Use machine gun fire, grenades, and makeshift roadblocks to separate tanks from their supporting infantry, then eliminate the isolated units at your own pace. Above all else: demoralize the enemy. A brick or piece of broken glass is deadlier in a close quarters fight than a rifle."

The 18th Division did their best to take these lessons to heart, distributing spare Vulturii training manuals to many of its junior officers. The 36th Regiment reorganized most of its formations into Vulturii-inspired assault teams. although the 35th Regiment had lost too many of its artillery pieces in the retreat to make widespread use of this tactic. In the first days of the siege, the 15th Rifle Corps, consisting of the 45th and 62nd Rifle Divisions, was lured into the heart of the city. The two divisions were separated, and soon Romanian troops began cutting off and isolating the Soviet force into smaller, more easily defeatable pockets.

When asked how his "Shanghai on the Bîc" was turning out, Col. Lupescu replied, "This isn't Shanghai, this is the Raate Road."

Let them eat cake.

(Influenced by my dairy and its musings.)

As rejected by Global Photojournalism; Protest, Culture, and News . (No reason given).

To qualify this article l would like to go on the record that l have been instructed by some amazing teachers, all with academic titles. Furthermore, it must be said, that l have stated publicly, that l could not name, nor count, the number of exceptional teachers that have instructed me, because there where too many. This article is not about teachers, but a lack of exceptional ones. I personally find it distressing, because all children should be given the type of opportunity l had, and therefore a chance to defend themselves. This article is about a process, one that needs to be classified, and identified, with conscious critical thought. Critical thought involving observations. It involves observations that some of those with titles would or could be ignorant of. A situation, driven by those of systemic privileged, or those with ivory towers that render them unable to see.

All biological systems strive for survival, even small single cell organisms, like amoebas. They do it without seemingly thinking. But the difference between the amoebas, and the humans, is meant to be human thought, and human conciseness. Recently a new local high school was built in Shepparton Victoria Australia, and it was ironically named the super school. Already it has helped give the locals here an education, producing a lot of conscious contemplation among residents. It was the amalgamation of three out of three, or all the of the public high schools in the small city of Shepparton. Its construction left no options for some residents, and in the United States of America, criticism of schools like this new school, is commonplace. In the United States, the lack of choice as to where you can send your children in the public school system causes for some public debate. That debate now rages here, and for good reason. The results were highly predictable, with comparable results to that of America. The result has been that the police have been called repeatedly. There have been weapons, fights, and even the aspersion that a student suicide could be attributed to the new super school. Academic performance of the schools results are now unknown, as the education system now uses a sliding ruler, one that is remotely monitored by a now faceless group. It has resulted with any aspersion, that the school is a failure being foiled and deemed as a baseless slur. Some educated locals went into overdrive sighting personal responsibility of the individual and the lack there of, for some students and parents.

The defence of the hegemon, when the school had become a nightmare, for both the teachers and the Victorian Labour party, became a name and shame process directed at some locals, and their children. Some trying to defend the teacher’s union darling the Australian Labour party, which had help instigated the fiasco. A fiasco that was easily avoided if they had studied the American application of such schools. Was it ignorance? Was it Australian ego for the Victorian education board? Was it in the worst-case scenario, a deliberate act to produce a school that applied an American model? A model, that had historically repeatedly produced poor social outcomes. One that had already failed in the United States? If educated people, including some teachers where defending the super school, it raised the question, where were these teachers and educated people sending their children to be educated? Was it to the new super school? If it was, were they following the tried-and-true public-school scenario, of teachers and influential parents, making sure their children where in handpicked classes? Did they do as had been done before, making sure their children had handpicked teachers, and handpicked students for their children to study with, while the average people got the undesirables? Where they conscious of what they had given their children, or where they being deliberately ignorant? Because if it were found that they were guiding the lily for their children, what would be the public reaction?

How far some educated had shifted from sixties social liberal ideals; and it raises a lot of questions! Did they know what was happing? That it is happening? Where they unwittingly involved, blindsided by psychological drift? Psychological drift being a change so slow and gradual, that they were perceptually blindsided by ignorance, and or a lack of self-awareness. Did they not notice the change in their attitudes? Did they not critically look at what they were and are participating in? Or where they unwittingly led by mistaken ignorant logic? And in the worst-case scenario, was the new school planned? And where the resultant outcomes statistically inevitable, but desired?

This is an initial exploration of investigative journalism, on the outcomes of the worst-case scenario, and is based mostly on firsthand experience and observations. My apologies, for what may seem like a not so interesting picture. But the building in the picture resembles some of the prisons in which some of the students will go to serve sentences. It has been satirically joked, and it was not meant to be funny by some of the locals, that once they go to prison, they will be fully prepared. The building, and violence, will not be much different from the school, that they received their high school education in.

Most people are educated or warned of nepotism at high school, and or university. It is a self-serving process for those that teach it, as it helps classify hereditary royalty or Aristocracy as an exhausted, and or morally corrupt institution. But now this teaching, has become a matter of hypocrisy, for those that teach it. It helps define the institutionally educated as those that should control and distribute influence, because it is said, that they earned their positions via merit, and not via a process involving gross nepotism. Nepotism that is now openly practiced by the educated, when it comes to the education of their children, versus the education of the masses. Some openly fight, unquestioned, for causes that proactively push for their children, to be preferentially, and proactively treated like the children of people of aristocratic tittles were accused of. They even give themselves tittles at universities, letters before their names. It helps distinguish and make themselves distinct from ordinary people, or the new commoners. It even extends to those selected to represent them in the student bodies. But unlike the sixties student bodies that rallied against war, in the new higher education system student bodies, they actively participate in a new form of war.

It is now the new millennium, and there is a new form of warfare to avoid. It involves some people of title, but this is not an article on the aristocracy. It is no longer the song “The fortunate son,” sung by Creedence Clearwater Revival. A sixties song about the sons of the rich and influential not going to war. Now it is the fortune “academic,” the person who has a higher education. They and their children are mostly excluded, and do not have to go to war. I had previously reported that the new courthouse here in Shepparton Victoria Australia, was colloquially being called building B by some of the locals. It is B for Birkenau, and the name is partly why l write this. The other reason is that all the positions of power in building B, are held by people with academic titles. Titles involve in skewed eugenics and nepotism. The scenario faced is like “good cop, bad cop” tactics, but is applied by those with academic titles, not the police. It happens on multiple fronts. One such front is that large numbers of educated people openly promote or condone drug use, while others incarcerate as many as they can. Fifteen percent of all Australian prisoners are imprisoned on drug charges, out of approximately thirty thousand currently in jail, and many more are committed to psychiatric facilities because of it. If the objective of the educated was to reduce harm, they have abjectly failed, and the opposite has happened. Was it intentional? Where they trying to build a prison system as speculated by the band “The system of the down” in the “prison song.” And did The System of the down not see, or know, of the outcomes for those classified as ill, as they promoted in their song as an alternative? I once approached the subject on the Victorian Parliamentary Facebook page. In the description, l drew the analogy, that the incarceration, and medical treatment of individuals for drug use, was like Chinese re-education camps, and that they existed in Victoria, and they existed on an industrial scale.

Has this industrial scale of human processing, produced a form of unconscious time dependent opportunistic nepotism? Like amoebas, instead of critically thinking humans, had we all allowed it to happen? Had we all listened unquestioningly to the educated? And had it created a new form of nepotism. A form that helps the educated-on average, have their children precluded from a statistical death march. A process of prolonged involuntary distress, involving the battlefield of the court, the prison system, involuntary medical treatment and or classification. The result is, the children of the educated, on average get the better jobs, have better outcomes, have higher positions of power, and sway larger numbers of people behind their causes. The consideration of building B, and firsthand observations, raised the horrendous proposition of who needs a gas chamber, when you have statistics? The western world has in general shunned America for its seconded amendment, but a closer look at the west, even those countries without a second amendment of sorts, or an official death sentence, produced horrific observations. The realty is state sanctioned, systemic modern-day murder.

While at university l helped challenge the central dogma of biochemistry with prions, or the protein that causes mad cow disease. A bold effort, but l was young and idealistic. Amusingly it should also be noted that the lecturer l told it too, asked my permission to use it. He later taught me about a story of the two scientists Watson and Crick. As far as my memory servs me, he said, they had plied a French scientist’s son with alcohol, the result was his tongue loosened, and he talked about his father’s research. They subsequently wrote down what he divulged on a bar napkin. It was for the base pair arrangement of DNA (deoxyribose nucleic acid). And from it came the logical deduction for the final double helix model of DNA. Latter l would go on to joke, that Watson and Crick had won a noble prize in biochemistry. Not for the structure of DNA, but for the judicious application of a biochemical agent, or a neuron toxin, ethanol. I was being facetious. Despite some successes at university, it was hard for many reasons. Part of the experience of university was trying to theorise Protein specific proteases to combat the AIDS epidemic. Another was for the construction of proteins to treat the disease. As a result, l gained an appreciation of the complexities of medical treatment when it comes to who dies and who survives, and what role academics play in that process. The conclusion gained was that life and reality are quite brutal.

Academics already openly argue behavioural eugenics with psychiatric history, via genetic predisposition of psychiatric illness. Medical professionals in hospitals and criminal systems, universally practice it throughout Australia. A process that has been publicly shunned for occurring during the second world war, is practiced here in Australia, and the practise is commonplace. As a result, victims, and those suffering psychiatric illness are dosed with poison, and lives are ended prematurely. Slowly, chemically, euthanising thousands, with statistical outcomes. The statistics are, that many psychiatric medications cause on average premature death. Additionally, it is statistically observed that those taking most psychiatric medications are highly discouraged from conceiving, and or nurturing, an in-utero baby while taking their medication. Paradoxically psychiatric professionals discourage most people from stopping their medication; thus, a person is neutered with logic gates. On one hand, it is presumed that a person cannot stop taking their medication for their own safety, and or the safety of the public. And on the other hand, due to the birth defects or abnormalities associated with such medication, and for the sake of your baby, they say those classified, should not have children while being administered their medication. This process occurs for not adhering to the party line, not a political party line, but the new scientific line, one that involves a new group with titles. It is not ironic, that the rules of this process, are not in general being taught to the new commoners.…

Some of the new people with titles are the emperor with no cloths, and they cannot be questioned. l presume criminal history will be next here in Australia for the classification of genetic predisposition, after psychiatric predisposition has been fully fledged. A reborn process, for people of titles. One adopting the Chinese model of re-education camps, like those already here in the state of Victoria. An extension of the current medical model, of psychiatric treatment. A model for social conduct and classification involving social reward. A model that involves if you will have children or not. A process that relies on obeying the edicts of the new people of title.

Do these new people of title, wield absolute rule, as Justin Trudeau a high school teacher, and Canadian prime minister applied to his people for a brief time? It is a rhetorical question. He applied his title, like European aristocracy where stereotypically and historically accused of. By self-edict of law, he made his words unquestionable, and the words of new common people’s (those predominantly without academic titles) decent outlawed. Is this the new party line or the academic line, of pseudo pacifist proper gander? Is this what the new Aristocracy, or people of title do? Is this where you rely on the fallacy of lack of personal responsibility? An assumption involving privy knowledge, before socially engineering incidents via carefully worded classifications, and or, build a school that is most certainly bound to fail, and with it, classify whole blood lines educated in it, as inferior? Classifications using peer reviewed definitions. Peer reviewed definitions written ironically and hypocritically by those with new age titles. Articles which cannot be questioned by the new age commoner, but only by their academic peers. Once again it is rhetorical. All the while, they exclude their own children from the process, with their systemic peer derived privilege. It all sounds historically and remarkably familiar. And it happens while relying on the medical industry complex, and criminal industrial complex, for statistically predetermined social outcomes. It enables people to slowly but surely exterminate their undesirables. It is a proposition that has already happened and is currently happening.

The result is that via spurious association of genetic predisposition for behaviour, some families are being genetically classified, and weeded out via the behaviour of individuals in their families. Part of psychiatric dogma is to look for a family history of psychiatric illness then argue it is genetic. And that that genetic trait is no longer beneficial or needed. If one member of a family has had anything that could be classified as an incident, it is then argued that there is an increased chance of a genetically induced psychiatric incident or incidents happening in other family members. The result of such logic is the application of drugs, such as anti-psychotics, which on average drastically reduce the life span of the patient or victim. The medications, can, and are, forcefully administered, by people of new age titles. The additional subsequent logic gating, weight gain, and body odour causes the person to be seen as undesirable, or substandard, and lowers their chance of having children. The result is a death sentence for the patient, and a reduced chance of them having offspring. In the very least it is murder, if the diagnosis is wrong, and causes a slow, but sure reduction in the size of the victim’s family. As the application of this scientific dogma becomes more prevalent, or prolonged, the result is near genocide.

Personal statistical analysis of public psychiatric facilities is that they are full of people of lower education levels. But full of people that do not lack intellect. Why are the educated mostly excluded and deemed as being above it? They can afford both preferential systemic sympathetic medical representation, and systemic sympathetic legal representation, thus, avoiding the classification of being genetically substandard. Furthermore, those responsible for the classification and criminal punitive punishment of both criminal and psychiatric failings, are associated to those in academic institutions. It is a family operation, no different from the stereotype of aristocracy. When one of their own is brought before the court system, either in the medical or criminal court, it is raised that they are above average, and given on average, lower sentences, or even no sentences at all. They are deemed, as being inherently better than the average human, due to the letters or tittle before their name. It is a repeat of the stereotype of the old aristocratic system, of human classification. The current stereotype of those below the educated, is that they are being incarcerated, and medically treated, for both their good, and the safety of the public. So why are the educated spared more on average from this process, despite in cases committing the same crimes? I can identify no reason, other than their self-appointed peerage.

The observation is that behavioural eugenics, has turned to a practice of statistical genocide over an extended period, and it is a practice being mostly applied by the educated, and in favour of themselves. It is a statistical death march for some families. A prolonged process that involves the application of self-serving statistics, and a classification that ends in the lower chance of reproduction for selected individuals, and the increased chance of a family’s genetics being branded as dangerous or substandard. Thus, it negates any responsibility of having enabled the elimination of that family’s or group’s blood line, or in the very least, part of it, because it was, and is said, to be for the greater good. It is for the “uber alles,” but has nothing to do with German nationalism, and as it stands, it is predominantly males in the groups of families. Leaving the females on average in those families as breeders for those deemed as genetically worthy. Genetically worthy for the last 20 years has been those that had drugs, or those that had an education and there for had money. Those that had drugs, and there for a higher chance for reported psychiatric and criminal incidents, could break the nuclear family rule, but they walked a fine line. In breaking the law, they put their families or the males in their families on lists for slow, undetectable state sanctioned extermination. On the other hand, those with cash and an education, could break the nuclear family rule, having more than two children in an already overpopulated world. Both scenarios being state encouraged with government subsidies.

As an Australian, l found, and find, this scenario highly ironic. If the scenario were not real, it would be satire. It is shocking in its irony because the Australian colony was originally populated with predominantly criminals. According to the new eugenics line of thought, all Australian families, other than new arrivals carry as per the eugenics line of thought, a predisposition, of genetically predetermined behaviour, one that is now being openly classified, as a genetic trait. Doubly ironic, is the historical fact, that they even sent unwilling females from England, who were upon arrival, to be bred with no choice in the matter like cattle, and to service those men deemed as worthy. Nothing in the Australian colony, a previous penal colony, seems to have changed too much, just the family names of the families with titles or letters before their names now differ. And instead of hanging you, they now classify you, and your family, as a genetic medical issue, or defect. A medical issue to be slowly euthanised for the benefit, and protection of society, and the greater good.

The only consideration that this worst-case scenario leaves me with, is have the educated hit the philosophical slippery slope, or have they just thrown the new commoners down it? Creating a caste system via an education system. An education system, skewed in the favour of those with new age titles. An education system, giving systemic preferential treatment too those with new age titles, and their children. Is the new commoner’s child starved of an education? A quality education? One which is now harder for my geographical neighbours to find. An education, which helps prevent their public-school child or children, and their family, from a statistically higher chance, of a state sanctioned, and a state sponsored statistical death march. A march, that begins, and ends, in a trip to building B. A trip, with a higher chance of genocide at the end. And as it stands, my neighbours are being told,” let them eat cake!”