#badtopology
Turns out when you optimize something for millennia, the truly optimal solution is not a simple grid. That picture is essentially a proof that engineering will always be needed. Because any final solution is complex. Even if it’s parts are trivial.
How so?
Well the wing itself isn’t supposed to deform so we’re good! :P
Seriously funny seeing this after trying repeatedly to retopologize simple objects, but making myself stick to quads to build the skills and “poly-perception”…It’s truly maddening and un-fun lol.
Thanks for linking that site further down, by the way. :D
I get a metric fuckton of them during the rainy season. Swarms of dragonflies. Needless to say, I do not have a mosquito problem.
100? Let’s pump those numbers up my lovelies!
And the Appalachian mountains are even older. Older than trees and sharks.
And sharks are older then the rings of Saturn.
Predating dinosaurs: as in ‘predators’ or ‘pre-dating’?
I’m scared.
Definitely the second (by around a hundred million years), probably not the first (some dragonflies were certainly large enough to hunt small flying dinosaurs — i.e., small birds —, but they almost certainly lived one or two hundred million years apart, which would have made the whole affair rather difficult, as dragonflies, as good as they are, can’t yet hunt through time).
Til dragonflies eat a diet of mosquitoes and dinosaurs 🫨
Hahaha nice!
Or maybe even “previously dating”?
Serious question: Has any culture tried breeding these guys to keep mosquitoes at bay? Something like how people kept cats around to reduce the population of mice?
Interesting question! I’d guess, however you do it, you could only achieve a temporary uptick in the population. Like any other predator/prey relationship, the ecosystem can only support X predators. After all, the ancient Egyptians could only have so many cats around until they ran out of mice.
Be a pain to breed. They stay underwater as nymphs for 2 years, and that’s 2 years where you gotta keep them from being someone else’s lunch.
They also feed on mosquito larvae and hold their own pretty well in the water though.
And two years underwater only to have them for one month airborne.
They’re not cute like cats, so I guess no.
Wait. They eat mosquitos?
How do I attract more of these flying dragons?
Water is your answer my friend.
Never had them in my yard, not that I noticed anyway. Buried an old trash can for a water feature. Bam. Dragonflies.
I have 3 other ponds. One is a $25 Home Depot pond and the other is a thrift-store witch’s cauldron. They all have a couple of goldfish in them, native ater plants, and the trash can pond has a solar cell running a 12V water pump.
Breeding mosquitoes should help attract them.
Some people even wear a little dragonfly doodad on a wire to deter mosquitoes
odonata stays winning
This would be more like un-stained glass than stained glass.
How do you un-stain glass?
Great question! The answer is that, well, you don’t, but that’s not what I’m intending unstained to mean here.
As it turns out, “unstained” is structurally ambiguous, because English has two different “un-” prefixes, each of which has different functions and different category selection requirements.
The first attaches to verbs, and means “reverse the action of”, e.g. un-tie, un-do, un-stain, etc. The second attaches to adjectives, and means “not X”, e.g. un-happy, un-satisfied, etc.
So, if we want to form the word “undoable”, we can either take the verb “do” and attach “-able” first, giving us an adjective “doable” to which we can then add “un-” to give us “undoable”, an adjective meaning “not able to be done” (“Flying by flapping your arms is undoable”)
OR
We can take “do” and add the other “un-” first, giving us a verb “undo” meaning “to reverse the action of something” to which we can then add the suffix “-able”, giving us “undoable”, a different adjective meaning “able to be undone” (“Simple knots are easily undoable”)So, while both of these look and sound like the same word, they actually have different structures that correspond to the differences in their meanings.
In my OP, you read “unstained” as “unstain-ed”, with “un-” attaching to “stain” to give a verb “unstain” meaning “to reverse the staining of”, and then added the participle suffix, while my intended structure was to attach “stain” and “-ed” first, giving a participle (adjective) “stained”, to which we can then add the other prefix “un-”, giving “un-stained” “not stained”.
They are also the most successful hunters in the animal kingdom with a ~97% success rate. They don’t know trigonometry, but their brains allow them to calculate where their prey will be and they intercept it.
Not with a 97% success rate but I don’t know trigonometry and can do that in war thunder. you just vibe into it
I mean, most humans don’t really ‘know’ trigonometry, we can still play catch.
You’re wrong! I can’t do either.
Aha! Science!
ahem
I LOVE dragonflies! Getting a tat of one, my first!
If a dragonfly locks onto your happy ass, you’re meat. 95-97% hunt success ratio, highest of any animal on the planet. Strongest flying insect, with 4 independently operating wings. Watch one fly in slow mo. That is what Frank Herbert had in mine when he wrote ornithopters into Dune. Their head is basically a giant, binocular eyeball, a complete target-seeking combat package.
They do love them some mosquitoes, that’s a fact. Not going to say our swamp in the boonies is mosquito free, but it’s a swamp, it’s loaded with dragonflies, and there ain’t many around. Anything smaller than them, which is to say, everyone else, is fair dinkums. They’ll start horking down on what ever part first fits in those gigantic jaws, alive or dead, no matter. Every watched one eat? Not for the faint of heart. Those jaws are like a squared-off, champing vice. Crazy nasty ass dragonfly, dragonfly don’t care, dragonfly doesn’t give a shit. We got tactical smart missiles, phased plasma pulse rifles, RPGs, we got sonic electronic ball breakers! We got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks… We got dragonflies!
Want to “pet” one? Hold very still and stick your finger out, they’ll eventually use you as a helipad. Woman across the street is a got damned dragonfly whisperer, got a dozen pics of her holding one. Here’s one chillin’ on my wife, rode half a mile upstream with us, our very own combat air patrol.
Anyway, I think dragonflies are kinda cool.
You’ve enlightened me. I love dragonflies too now.
Found OP:
!Subscribe
This feels like a copypasta from a better universe than ours
This appears bespoke. Subscribe.
Sounds like you might be interested in reading a manhwa called “Jungle Juice”.
A bug killer spray called “Jungle Juice” is being sold. After using the spray, they gain a “complex”, which essentially turns them into at a human-bug hybrid with whatever they killed. The main character killed a Golden-ringed Dragonfly.
They are super cool and super territorial by all accounts. We were in a pop-up pub in a field and this guy kept coming to sit on our hands. I guess we were in his spot…
So what do they eat as larvae? Mosquito eggs?
Anything that move and smaller than them, even fish, as they’re ambush predator, by launching their dino-grabber-like mouth part to grab their prey and send it right into their mouth. They also have jet butt. If the adult is the airforce, the nymph is the navy.
Yes mosquito larvae is indeed one of the things they eat in the water
I think Dragonflies are pretty cool too. Thanks for the fun facts!
In return, here is the best dragonfly photo I have taken to date.
Cool!
Here’s my latest:
That was absolutely glorious and insanely witty. I’ve been called witty before and this had me feeling joyfully outclassed. I thought I was in for some crazy copy pasta but it just ended up further educating me on WHY dragonflies are so cool.
(And yeah damselflies, psh. Bugs. Seeing a dragonfly is a GOOD day.)
I hope this becomes a copy pasta. It was legit hilarious and awesome to read.
Dang it I’m really hoping you’re having like *a really good day. * Thanks for writing this. :D
Your writing had a bit of a ‘the oatmeal’ vibe to it. Nice
That voice acting! Marvelous!
Could you post some pics of the trashcan? Sounds cool, might want to make one
You’re the person that makes me exhale In relief when i am at social gathering with an uncomfortable amount of people around.
Do yourself a favor and watch this vid about dragonflies, it’s super cool: https://youtu.be/8i9WMD6xbuA
NICE! Thanks for sharing.
Hey I was gonna say that
To scrollers: this is a recent video by AlphaPhoenix where he captures slow-motion footage of dragonflies. Some amazing shots in there. Well, one at least.
this is not stained class
had me fooled!
Have seena grand total of two on my property this year
Is that more or less than normal?
Dunno. Their appearance coincided with all the rain we had back then so that is probably a factor
And at one time were 3ft across… wingtip to wingtip
