So one of the crysalis is getting near hatching time and I can see his/her wings. It wasn't attached to anything very solid (I think it was on a leaf that someone else ate) so I went and tied on a lifeline for in case it breaks off when they are trying to hatch.
Very cold tonight though so I am a bit worried.
How's it going this morning?
Report from today: they successfully hatched!!
So did another one from a chrysalis I hadn't even noticed as it's on a very scruffy tree that I thought had no caterpillars. I didn't get a photo because they must have hatched this morning and now won't keep still.
Hopefully they will get the memo that it's cold and not a lot to eat, and go and hibernate somewhere.
Yay!
These are monarch butterflies? Do our ones hibernate rather than migrate?
They overwinter! There was an article just recently talking about how there are not as many Monarchs being spotted hibernating this winter: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/butterfly-experts-call-for-help-with-drop-in-monarch-butterfly-sightings-strange-winter-trend/W7ZMLXM7IZEDTCHTSGAM4B6QMU/
Huh. I few weeks back I was in Hawera, and stopped at a park there. There was a tree absolutely swarming with what looked like monarchs. I managed to find a picture!
Now I know what it was!
I... do not know. I will go out there and report back.
Frustration: that we seem to punish certain people for transgressions against government rules and not others. (This government rely knows how to show off inequality).
I was reading (admittedly just the article title...) about how over 50% of voters support the government's plan to boot opposition MPs out of parliament for weeks. It made me wonder what context they give people before asking.
If the question was phrased "Do you support a punishment for Te Pāti Māori MPs that is 7 times harsher than the most severe punishment ever handed down in parliament?" do you think people would still support the governments' actions?
Anyone else got a dehydrator? I recently ordered one and it should arrive next week sometime. I'm wondering what else I can do with it besides dehydrating herbs/fruit/jerky.
Tomatoes? Idk you just covered the main bases.
I did read dehydrating them and putting them in oil ends up practically the same as bought sun-dried tomatoes!
Yum! Probably the wrong time of year for it now, but in tomato season you could do some big jars!
In case you missed it - I have just posted the survey for our 2024 census: https://lemmy.nz/post/23814399
I started to answer it but to me it felt too much like 'surveillance state' questions...
Any in particular?
The idea is to get some census like data to learn about the kids of people who use our instance/Lemmy. We've put some effort into trying not to scare people off while still yielding useful data. If there is any feedback I'd love to hear it! I can't change much after the survey has started but I'd love to take feedback into the next time and help other instances too.
It's worth noting that no question is mandatory. If you're not comfortable answering a question you don't have to (and it's fine to e.g. skip the "census" style questions and jump to the questions about how you use Lemmy.)
Feedback I forgot the other day is that kbin no longer exists.
Ah I didn't spot that when copying over from last year.
I guess it's a bit more nuanced, too. I probably would have changed it to Mbin/Kbin.
Kbin the platform is no longer being developed, replaced by the fork Mbin. But there are still instances called Kbin that are running the Mbin software, e.g. https://kbin.earth/
So there are.
Mbin forked before a lot of kbin's cooler features got implemented, I wonder if they ended up developing them too. Piefed seems closer but I haven't really explored it yet.
I don't think Piefed does the microblogging /mastodon thing like Kbon/Mbin. But it seems pretty cool. Developed by a guy in NZ.
Piefed does have the topics thing where you can subscribe to topics that hold groups of communities, which is cool. Plus new features coming all the time. One of the aims was to write it in Python which is much more widely used so easier to find contributors. Lemmy is written in Rust, which has performance benefits but is also a newer language will fewer people that know it and so fewer contributors.
Oh that's a pity, I loved being able to follow mastodons via kbin. Kbin was written in php so probably just as niche as Lemmy but for the opposite reason?
I think the topics was why I thought Piefed was going to be more like kbin.
I think there are more PHP familiar devs around than rust, the main issue with Kbin was a combination of a developer who was fiercely protective of his codebase, and also had no time to work on it or review contributions from others.
I think as a result of that, Mbin is expressly consensus based and there are more people who can merge code into the code base.
Yeah, it was sad how that whole thing went down. Ernest was visionary, but protective and had health issues, and a couple of the people who wanted to help were kind of being dicks to him imo.
I feel like with the fediverse we are in the early stages of something that could be really powerful and amazing. Thanks for all you do with this corner of it!
Ah I didn't really see the drama, only brief bits of information from time to time.
The fediverse does feel like the next generation of the internet. There are a lot of obstacles but I do hope it continues to grow (at a sustainable pace).
Kia ora and welcome to !newzealand, a place to share and discuss anything about Aotearoa in general
Rules:
FAQ ~ NZ Community List ~ Join Matrix chatroom
Banner image by Bernard Spragg
Got an idea for next month's banner?