The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning
Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.
Who’d’a thunk it?
Monarch butterfly eggs occur in onesie-twosies on each milkweed plant, but Tussock Moths carpet-bomb the leaves with eggs that hatch pretty much all at once:
With a population density like that, the plant doesn’t stand a chance:
A few hours later, they were gone and so were the leaves! Presumably, they’re traveling across the ground to the adjacent milkweed plants; one or two may find our patio.
Despite all the egg-laying we saw, we haven’t seen any Monarch caterpillars out there.
I just got a new pair of Wasabi Power NP-BX1 batteries for the HDR-AS30V helmet camera, charged them up, and ran them through the CBA:
Huh.
The new ones (H and I) cost near twice as much as the 2-1/2 year old previous pair (F and G), while delivering less energy at a lower terminal voltage. Tested ’em twice to be sure and the curves overlay just about perfectly, so it’s not a fluke.
The rep assures me the replacement cells will deliver their promised capacity. We shall see.
Amazon may toss lithium cells into a cardboad box without much care, but chocolate requires attention to detail:
An ice pack, with a lump of ice in the middle, snuggled under the chocolate carton. The box arrived UPS Next Day from Amazon’s Kentucky distribution center, with the carton inside still cold to the touch.
On the average, I suppose, Amazon’s packaging averages out, but I’d rather they paid more attention to protecting hazardous material.
The picture shows a reenactment of actual events, because we were in the middle of something else when the UPS truck arrived.
The mandatory warning stickers leave no doubt as to what’s in the box:
You can imagine my relief when the lithium cells arrived intact:
FWIW, the ATK lithium cells arrived in a small box, snugly tucked into a form-fitting foam block:
As long as nothing happens, it doesn’t matter, right?
You’d think Amazon would have learned something from their day in court, though …
The main cicada season has only begun, so these two may have emerged slightly too early:
They’re “ordinary” cicadas, not periodical cicadas, which certainly matters more to them than us.
They’re completely harmless, but definitely don’t look it:
Their topside armor would look great on a robot:
Found ’em dead on the driveway, alas.
Either Mama Frog picked a bad location or these little critters fell over the edge, as I found a handful in the big stainless steel bowl Mary uses for spot-watering some of her plantings:
The bowl curves inward over their heads and their feet didn’t seem sticky enough to get them up and out, so I dumped the lot of them into the flower bed. May they live long & prosper!
We found this critter keeping a watchful eye on the construction at Adams Fairacre Farms during our most recent grocery trip:
I think it’s an undocumented alien that entered the US stowed away in a tropical plant, because it was affixed to the array of ceramic pots outside their (open) greenhouse windows:
To the best of my admittedly limited herpetological knowledge, none of our native lizards / geckos / whatever have such a distinctive dorsal frill / fin / ridge. I have no idea how to look the critter up, though.
We left it to seek its own destiny. Unless it’s a mated female (hard to tell with lizards), it’ll have a lonely life.
Perhaps it practices rishratha, which is entirely possible.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 