iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

I'm so so sorry. This is a tragedy of greed and stupidity.

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

I heartily recommend A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg - an excellent book on the rediscovery of this marvelous fish.

010

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Hmm. I think P. triptophylla has it, but not as strongly. What others have you found it with?

200

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

I love these guys. Parmeliella testacea has a really distinctive smell of TCP!

100

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Yes! Apart from the obvious (*waves at _all that_) I'm doing fine. Hope you're similar!

010

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

There's something about the photographer's expression that looks a bit AIish, but I might be making that up. You're right, I don't see any obvious visual problems other than the speed, but then AI is continually improving. If we're not at the point where it's impossible to tell, we will be soon.

010

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

I can't tell. What are the tell-tales for you on this?

000

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

I'm so sorry. That is a tragedy that should never have been allowed to happen. Your mum deserved better, and so do we as a society.

020

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

I'd say his letter does indeed provide ammunition for those he would call 'woke'.

010

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Lush. I worked on the reconstruction of the turf room in 2010/11. Vertiginous!

010

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

I think we need to know more about Kleingold to assess whether this was justified or not.

110

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

JFC ... Unbelievable. I had to go to the website cos I couldn't believe it wasn't a joke...

110

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Obviously, because amazement is a human construct. Without humans, who would be amazed?

000

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

In fact you're not incorrect! Lichens are symbiotic composite organisms, where a fungus provides most of the structure and exterior tissue. In this species there is a photosynthetic cyanobacterium as the partner, which is acquiring the carbohydrates which feeds the fungus!

040

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

I can tell you! It's a lichen! To be more precise, it's a Dog Lichen - one of the Peltigera species and it's very likely Peltigera membranacea.

140

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Gorgeous. Both your pictured fabulous fungi are lichens - the stalked one is Cladonua, the other one I'm not sure, perhaps a Physconia?

110

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

I might adopt that for my WhatsApp status.

000

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Ok .. I see there are owls everywhere now. Which is an unexpected bonus.

100

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Hmmmm. Prior to the pub, they might have come with a wee carry out from the offie mind you. Having said that, prior to the pub, the tree would have been a relative youngster. Perhaps there were other quercine grandees to be admired in the vicinity, long returned to the earth to sustain this one.

130

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Count me in. I've been doing a lot of fieldwork in bogs and fens over the last couple of years and the more time I spend in peatlands the more I love them! 🤎💚🤎🧡🤎❤️🤎

040

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

I did a maths degree, but I'm super glad I'm never gonna have to figure out PDEs ever again. (I pivoted to pure.)

120

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

What? People on social media not understanding science? Surely not!

000

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Absolutely! And I don't think the model has got less complex since then. But they are still using the 'blueprint' as a basic analogy, it's the understanding of the way the 'blueprint' is realised that is being rethought here.

000

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

I strongly suspect I've already signed up for this and then promptly ignored and forgot about it 😖

000

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

I'm curious about this, and hope someone can elucidate a bit. Let's take the classic example (Hitler, obvs): clearly at its peak his regime was extremely powerful. So, do we not consider the apparatus of his regime to be "government"? I'm not a political scientist or a historian, clearly!

000

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Where did you find it? (Geographically) You're right, the discs in the middle of the 'flowers' are the fungi part. Actually, the fungi part goes around and through the whole organism, but those discs are pure fungi. Elsewhere, there is a layer of algal cells just beneath the 'skin' of fungi.

100

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

I love the colour contrast of the Rhizoplaca! I want to see it... We don't get that combo in the British-Irish Isles.

020

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

... the analogy _does_ break down when one considers the mutability of the genome compared to the blueprint. That's how I see it anyhow. Happy to be educated further! (Also, interesting article, thanks!)

110

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

To be fair, the 'machine blueprint' analogy is useful to some extent - it's just limited (like all analogies). In this case you could extend it by saying that the machine's capacity to produce a good product, depends not only on the quality of the blueprint, but on good machine maintenance. BUT...

100

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Your beautiful wife takes beautiful pictures.

110

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Now you mention it, that _is_ a lot of wall that provides very little interior space for the effort. Surely must have been a controversial part of the design!

110

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Could you imagine anything worse than being wrongfully convicted of multiple infanticide?

020

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

And true of about 99% of the ones I've found too. It just seems to be in areas of particularly 'juicy' habitat in Scotland that they flourish like this.

060

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Indeed... See the follow up to my post to see if you agree that the specimen here looks a bit sorediate!

100

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

If you look at this area here, I think you can see soredia, which you would never see on U. florida (just papillae).

020

Joe Hope @ Fferm Cefn Coch Farm @epiphytic.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Usnea strigosa isn't on the BLS checklist, so it's unlikely. U. florida is a very rare lichen in Scotland, and seemingly restricted to the west. But abundantly fruiting specimens of U. subfloridana do occur, and often fool visiting lichenologists from England into believing they've found U. florida!

220