Author: David Gorsline

Germination

A little bit pitch drop experiment, a little bit Michael Apted, a little bit genetic repository: William Beal’s 142-year-old seed viability experiment, reported by Nell Greenfieldboyce.

A microbiologist named Richard Lenski looked on. “The others were digging and trying to figure everything out, and I sort of held the map and held it under my jacket to keep it dry at one point. That was my hard work,” says Lenski. “I was wondering if cops might show up at some point.”

At the park: 116

The report for last Sunday:

Box #68 hatched out — Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus). This was the box with 10 eggs on 7 March that I suspected was a carryover from last year. But 15 of the 16 eggs hatched, so it would seem the bird just got started very early this spring.

We’re watching 9 boxes with active clutches. I expect that many of them will be hatched by our next work day on 9 May.

We saw an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) carrying nesting material to the new platform, and several incidents of Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) chasing off crows.

C has reported wet chips in box #67. We’ll take a look to see whether we can improve the waterproofing for that box.

We’ll work again on 9 May and then 23 May. Depending on what we find, that might be all for the season.

The weather looks peachy this weekend! Take an hour and snap some pics for the City Nature Challenge.

I’ve seen a few exit holes, but no cicada adults yet.

At the park: 115

A report for last Sunday:

As the spring continues to warm, I am tardier with getting reports out.

We had our first hatch, box #7, as park visitors enjoyed the mini mergansers on the wetland. We have seen nesting activity in 11 of our 16 boxes so far. We should be seeing more hatches on the 25th.

We made a quick and dirty mod to new box #3 (the one with the upside down door), but the screening that we tacked in place could be made more secure. Not a moment too soon, because we have 25 eggs incubating in that box. Box #1, also in the new pool, also has an excessive number of eggs.

Robin is scheduled to be joining us next Sunday. The plan was for her to cover an absence, but there will now be five of us, so perhaps we can cover the boxes more quickly. 10-day weather forecast suggests rain, so I will watch the forecasts as Sunday approaches.

Thank you all!

Particles

Our textbook is titled Japanese for Busy People, vol. I, and the lessons are organized around situations that a businessperson would want to handle. (A very early unit concerns exchanging business cards.) Each unit has a theme, like “Express gratitude,” or “Make a telephone call,” or “Order food at a restaurant.”

With more than a little nod to James Thurber’s “There’s No Place Like Home,” I remixed some of the unit themes into

Japanese for Busy Terrorists

  • Ask for telephone numbers
  • Describe what is inside a building
  • Talk about numbers of things or people that exist in a particular place
  • Talk about schedules in detail
  • Ask someone to do something for you

Japanese for Busy Counter-intelligence Officers

  • Talk about nationalities and occupations
  • Talk about where you live, where you work, and who your acquaintances are
  • Talk about the times of meetings and parties
  • Talk about what you are doing now
  • Forbid someone from doing something

Keep trying

A new approach to phishing that I haven’t seen before from the benthic creepy-crawlies:

Failure Delivery Notice.
User: [REDACTED]

3 pending sent message couldn’t be delivered

Action Required.
How to Fix It.

Click here to view undelivered sent email.

Created Date: 4. 13. 2021

Sensibility

Sean Wyer unpacks a word that has always puzzled me: naff.

Nonetheless, not all naff old things are made naff by the passing of time. Clippy, the Microsoft Office paperclip, appears anachronistic now, but was in fact always naff, because to my knowledge he never succeeded in carrying out his one job, which was to help you in any way to write a letter.

Although I’m not sure I agree about snow globes.