Going To Include That One Next Gamer Story I Write!

Going to include that one next gamer story I write!

"i'm bad at x" -> take out a library book -> read it -> skill exp

Evening at the Museum

Just spent the last hour recovering from four hours volunteering to teach kids math at the biggest children's museum that I know of. I did stop to look at the dino exhibit but I'm also tired. I feel frustrated that I tapped out at the last half hour but also know that I did the most outside of the couple running it and their kid who was playing the whole time.

One time, I was in a group discussing personalities and I tried to explain how I didn't think I was an extrovert (not that I really believe in such things) to which everyone shut me down. It's things like this that help me figure out that everyone is wrong. I just like people and consider socializing an important use of my time.

Museums are great though. I love them dearly.

Scientific Paper Review: Insects may or may not be sentient??

Reading this (https://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/epdf/10.3920/JIFF2022.0041?role=tab) paper about welfare when farming black soldier flies (published 2023) with the main author being Meghan Barret, who is a super duper cool female scientist that believes strongly in insect welfare (e-portfolio link here: http://meghan-barrett.com/about-me/), and I'm astonished!

Introduction starts off with a quick overview of what the paper is getting into and then dives into background history. I love reading scientific papers simply because there is so much cool stuff to learn. Animal welfare is dependent upon how the animal views how it's doing. A pampered lap dog with depression still has depression. A sad bug living in a super duper cool vivarium (which are way hard to set up) is still sad.

Insects in science may or may not be sentient. How do you define sentient? Where do you draw the line of responding to making decisions? Wild! If insects are sentient we should, of course, treat them like we are. If they aren't how do we determine welfare for something that's not sentient. This isn't about philosophy though so we're continuing on.

There is a model called the five freedoms model. The paper said it best so I'm quoting them here, "According to that influential model of animals’ interests (Brambell, 1965), animals ought to kept in ways that keep them free: (1) from hunger and thirst; (2) from discomfort; (3) from pain, injury, and disease; (4) to express normal behaviour; and (5) from fear and distress.".

From here the introduction continues to go on to explain that it's hard to tell when an insect is doing or has this stuff. If a pet cat decides to be a picky eater, is the owner a bad owner for not keeping them free from hunger and thirst or is the cat being picky? Again though! Not hear for philosophy or ethics that's been discussed a hundred times before.

What can be determined though is if something kills an insect it is bad. If it increases mortality, like a parasite would, it is bad. Good thing is that factors between farmed invertabra (aka bugs) is pretty universal. Another good news is we know a lot about the biology of the black soldier fly! They have six larva stages.

That concludes this part of the post! More coming soon.

Pretty neat how there are words for everything

Killer whales do not regularly eat moose. It's a rare phenomenon.

Source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Proceedings_of_the_Third_Glacier_Bay_Sci/98wsAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=moose

You know how orcas will regularly eat moose? I wonder if they ever used to eat mammoth or giant sloth or other megafauna before they went extinct. I would love to hear one day of a killer whale found frozen in some glacier with mammoth remains in its stomach

Absolutely stunning! I have to go watch some star lore now.

Memento Vivere

Some additional notes: