Uploads from ratexla, tagged animals, with geodata

20120801_3 Wasp nest (allegedly of median wasp, Dolichovespula media) hanging under a rock | Southern Norway | Right-click for more size options

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 04:15:05 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

Next to a half-overgrown forest road.

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20120929_2 Rose bedeguar gall, caused by the gall wasp Diplolepis rosae | Gothenburg, Sweden

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 05:50:32 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

Wiki has more pictures... :q

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20120801_4 Black horse scratching bay horse | Southern Norway

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 04:35:52 -0800

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20120714_1 Red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) working on a pine cone | Gothenburg, Sweden

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:38:13 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

My mum and I were out walking and she was the first to spot this squirrel sitting... uh... 1-2 meters from the path (which ran along the edge of the wood). And the squirrels in the area aren't half-tame like they are in some places. WTF! :D Well, I hope s/he wasn't brain damaged or something. :p

Click here for a slightly different shot. %D

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20120930_2 Utterly amazingly pine(?)-twig-like caterpillar!!! :D | Gothenburg, Sweden | Photo retained at full resolution - right-click to choose

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 09:07:02 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

(Pine was the first kind of twig I thought about, anyway...? :p ) Click here for a few more shots.

I was walking home from a shroom hunt and spotted something on my fleece scarf: "Hmm, twig? poop? ARGH CATERPILLAR DO NOT SQUISH!" :D S/he stayed still for a long while, like a good twig, and was returned to the woods.

Totally looks like: This here non-aerodynamic-looking train type... that carried me on my most epic trips... :q

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The 20 books I read in 2012 | Right-click for more size options

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 02:11:55 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

Starting dates, titles, authors, and some comments / quotes that I could think of. (The best books have been linked to their own pages on Amazon.) Scroll down to books #18 and #16 if you're short of time! <3

4-Mar-2012: 1. "The Zahir" by Paulo Coelho

11-Mar-2012: 2. "Giving: How each of us can change the world" by Bill Clinton
Fave! I remember Clinton was in my town once and did a book-signing event in a Totally Normal Bookshop. Wish I'd gone there. D: If you like or are interested in this book, you may also like "The life you can save" by Peter Singer! :D

24-Mar-2012: 3. "Egalias döttrar" by Gerd Brantenberg
Fave! English title: "Egalia's daughters: A satire of the sexes". It's from the 70's, and a big fun "How would you like it if..." question.

27-Mar-2012: 4. "On the road: The original scroll" by Jack Kerouac
The uncensored version, which was published in 2007... I had seen "On the road" mentioned in a couple of other books and got curious. And as I was "planning" an epic North American trip (2013, YEAH?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!), I thought I'd better check this out (since it would suck to return home and THEN read the cult book and maybe become a huge fangirl and scream "AW MAN I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THAT KEWL SPOT THAT I'M SURE HASN'T EVEN BEEN DEMOLISHED SINCE 1947!!!!!!1"). It was pretty fun (as was the little 2012 movie), and I eventually decided to read his 400000000 other books as well.

5-Apr-2012: 5. "River out of Eden: A Darwinian view of life" by Richard Dawkins
Dawkins is always a good read. I had heard that this little book doesn't really mention anything one won't find in his other books, but I have to... collect the whole set, dammit. And refresh my biology. :p

14-Apr-2012: 6. "The Dharma bums" by Jack Kerouac
Fave! Well, there's quite a bit of stuff about Buddhism... and stuff... that I didn't... ahem... get... :p But word around the campfire is there are worse things than Buddhism. :B *wink* *wink* *wink* In any case, this books is said to have ignited the "rucksack revolution" and if that means the hobby of backpacking, I can see why. :D
"And as I say, that hummingbird, a beautiful little blue hummingbird no bigger than a dragonfly, kept making a whistling jet dive at me, definitely saying hello to me, every day, usually in the morning, and I always yelled back at him a greeting. Finally he began to hover in the open window of the shack, buzzing there with his furious wings, looking at me beadily, then, flash, he was gone. That California humming guy...
Though sometimes I was afraid he would drive right into my head with his long beaker like a hatpin." x)

19-Apr-2012: 7. "The town and the city" by Jack Kerouac
The first novel he published.

8-May-2012: 8. "The sea is my brother" by Jack Kerouac
A short early novel, and many letters from his youth.

28-May-2012: 9. "Lonesome traveler" by Jack Kerouac
I read it on mah travels. Hardcore quote from little Mexican village:
"And when I wanted to go to the john I was directed to an ancient stone seat which overlorded the entire village like some king's throne and there I had to sit in full sight of everybody, it was completely in the open - mothers passing by smiled politely, children stared with fingers in mouth, young girls hummed at their work."

22-Jun-2012: 10. "Big Sur" by Jack Kerouac
My second fave Jack book so far? Cute non-humans abound. <:D Here's a mule quote you may recognize from elsewhere on my Flickr:
"... So I feed Alf the last of my apples which he receives with big faroff teeth inside his soft hairy muzzle, never biting, just muffing up my apple from my outstretched palm, and chomping away sadly, turning to scratch his behind against a tree with a big erotic motion that gets worse and worse till finally he's standing there with erectile dong that would scare the Whore of Babylon let alone me."

6-Jul-2012: 11. "Visions of Gerard" by Jack Kerouac
About his kind dead brother. Actually part 1 in the "Duluoz legend", but I guess 99.99999999999999999999% of readers start with "On the road" and that works out too...

14-Jul-2012: 12. "Doctor Sax" by Jack Kerouac
"So one night, from the Phebe house, we walked Blanche (who later in such a walk insisted on bringing my dog Beauty because she's afraid of the dark and as the little beast escorted her home it rushed out and got run over by Roger Carrufel of Pawtucketville who was somehow driving an Austin tinycar that night and the low bumper killed it, previously on Salem Street at Joe's lawn door it got run over by an ordinary car but rolled with the wheels and never got hurt - I heard the news of its death at precisely that moment in my life when I was lying in bed finding out that my tool had sensations in the tip - they yelled up to me thru the transom, 'Ton chien est mort! (Your dog is dead!)' and they brought it home dying - on the kitchen floor we and Blanche and Carrufel with hat in hand watch Beauty die, Beauty dies the night I discover sex, they wonder why I'm mad -) ..."

29-Jul-2012: 13. "Baby driver: A story about myself" by Jan Kerouac
Jack's wild and independent daughter (1952-1996), whom he met twice. Wish I were as rootless and competent as she was. :p
"I was often deluged, in those days, by a feeling of fabulous freedom. Lasting only an instant, it washed over me like a bucket of cold water, reminding me I was no longer simply a housewife. John had never intended for me to become one; it was a role I had climbed into myself. For three years it had been a lovely change from being a juvenile delinquent. But now I could really sense a page turning - even remember looking out in my mind's eye toward Santa Fe and the rest of the general direction south, and seeing things laid out in the future - nothing in particular, but an immensely inviting vacuum waiting to be filled."

4-Aug-2012: 14. "Trainsong" by Jan Kerouac
The continuation of the above story. The edition I got also includes some interviews and photos. Btw, I believe Jan's books have gone out of print. I was able to find used copies and, contrary to my habit, I refrained from underlining or margin-scrawling. JUST SAYIN! *cough* *cough* *hums jolly little pirate tune*

16-Aug-2012: 15. "Maggie Cassidy" by Jack Kerouac

29-Aug-2012: 16. "The better angels of our nature: The decline of violence in history and its causes" by Steven Pinker
Fave! THE MYTH-DESTRUCTION!!! THE ATTITUDE CHANGES!!! THE EXPERIMENTS!!! THE IDEAS!!! THE TRICKS!!! 8D I would say this was the second most important book I read this year. I'd come across a couple of articles on the decline of murder and war before, but this is A BIT more detailed.
In short, Pinker writes of the following: Six trends ("The Pacification Process" + "the Civilizing Process" + "the Humanitarian Revolution" + "the Long Peace" + "the New Peace" + "the Rights Revolutions"), five "inner demons" (predatory or instrumental violence + dominance + revenge + sadism + ideology), four "better angels" (empathy + self-control + the moral sense + reason), and five historical forces ("The Leviathan" + commerce + feminization + cosmopolitanism + "the escalator of reason").
He does point out that "the Animal Rights Revolution has been partly canceled out by another development, the Broiler Chicken Revolution." :/
(By the way, some editions of "Better angels" appear to have an alternative sub-title: "Why violence has declined." AFAIK, there's no other difference between them...)

17-Oct-2012: 17. "Vanity of Duluoz" by Jack Kerouac
Possibly my third fave Jack book so far, unless I forgot too much of "On the road". :)
"... so they ambulance me to the nut hatch. Where I'm greeted by a colloquial questionnaire in which is recorded the fact that I've had the highest IQ intelligence rating in the history of friggin Newport RI Naval Base and therefore I'm suspect. As being, mind you, an 'officer in the American Communist Party'."

28-Oct-2012: 18. "Practical ethics: Third edition" by Peter Singer
Fave! Probably the most important book I read this year. Peter Singer is pretty much the most logical and BULLSHIT-FREE person in the universe (of which he should be president). :D When I disagree with him, it's in an "Oh well, whatever" way. This book covers many walks of life such as abortion, environmentalism, charity, and animal rights. A quote from the chapter "Equality for animals?":
"The belief that issues about humans should always take precedence over issues about animals reflects a popular prejudice against taking the interests of animals seriously - a prejudice no better founded than the prejudice of white slave owners against taking seriously the interests of their African slaves. It is easy for us to criticize the prejudices of our grandfathers, from which our fathers freed themselves. It is more difficult to search for prejudices among the beliefs and values we hold. What is needed now is a willingness to follow the arguments where they lead, without a prior assumption that the issue is not worth our attention."

20-Nov-2012: 19. "Visions of Cody" by Jack Kerouac
"Well, Masturbation. There's absolutely no sense whatever in lettin your pants down à la shittin and then, cause you're too lazy to get up, or make other shifts, simply milk the cow (with appropriate thoughts) and let the milk at its sweet keen pitch spurt downward, between thighs, when the urge at that moment is upward, onward, out, straining, to make everything come out as though gathering it from all corners of the loins to purse it out the shivering push bone - No, with the thing flapping and milking below, not only that the seat cover restricting the natural quiver-bow jump of the cock - at the great moment there is a sudden sorrow 'cause you can't push in, out, over, onward, at it - but just sit dumbly (like a man sits down to piss) oozing below for miserable hygiene and convenience's sake in an awkward woebegone, in fact castrated with legs-tangled-in-pants position and dumb shirt tails hanging à la shit - and barely missing the real draining kick and ending up having done nothing but clean out the loins as if you'd stuck a dry rag in there and pull-mopped our your life's desire." o_O

21-Dec-2012: 20. "The hidden reality: Parallel universes and the deep laws of the cosmos" by Brian Greene
Fave! Well, I haven't got that far into it yet, and half expect him to lose me completely 5 pages from now... BUT... even if that happens, it may be THE BRUTALEST MINDFUCK I've ever read. (Update: Chapters 2 and 10, at least. :B ) I liked "The elegant universe" and "The fabric of the cosmos" too, but this book seems like the most interesting one. :D I hated physics class, but Greene's books are math-free. (There's some math in the notes for people who haz teh smart.) He'll say "The math shows this and this" and offer an analogy with something familiar.
"The subject of parallel universes is highly speculative. No experiment or observation has established that any version of the idea is realized in nature. So my point in writing this book is not to convince you that we're part of a multiverse. I'm not convinced - and, speaking generally, no one should be convinced - of anything not supported by hard data. That said, I find it both curious and compelling that numerous developments in physics, if followed sufficiently far, bump into some variation on the parallel-universe theme. It's not that physicists are standing ready, multiverse nets in their hands, seeking to snare any passing theory that might be slotted, however awkwardly, into a parallel-universe paradigm. Rather, all of the parallel-universe proposals that we will take seriously emerge unbidden from the mathematics of theories developed to explain conventional data and observations."

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Uploaded for the pink Hitler pants. | Near Alingsås, Sweden | 1990

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 05:05:28 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

Photo by me, I guess... :q

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20120711_1 European hare (Lepus europaeus) on lawn encircled by big apartment building in central Gothenburg, Sweden... :p

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:42:06 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

I was working in the building when I spotted the hare in a sandbox outside. First s/he jumped a mile into the air (reminding me of an ecstatic guinea pig :D ), then s/he rolled in the sand. :) 2 seconds after I finally went and got the camera (to take horrible distant photos), s/he started grazing on the surrounding lawn. And stayed there until I left, which was when I passed much closer and took this pic.

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20120619_13 Firebugs (Pyrrhocoris apterus) on a park tree | Berlin, Germany | Right-click for more size options

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 11:49:05 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

Mostly nymphs. Wiki says of firebugs: "They are frequently observed to form aggregations, especially as immature forms, with from tens to perhaps a hundred individuals." :q

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20120619_24 Motorized canal raft | Berlin, Germany

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 08:53:20 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

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20120831_1 Cute wart-biter cricket (Decticus verrucivorus) | Gothenburg, Sweden | Photos retained at full resolution - right-click to choose

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 06:35:52 -0700

ratexla posted a photo:

I think the one with the white background turned out the least horrible. :q

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20120811_1 Foot of mute swan baby (Cygnus olor) | Gothenburg, Sweden | Photo retained at full resolution - right-click to choose

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 07:03:10 -0700

ratexla posted a photo:

*strrrrrrretch!!!!!!!11* x)

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20120811_2 Folded leg of mute swan baby (Cygnus olor) | Gothenburg, Sweden

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 07:03:10 -0700

ratexla posted a photo:

Little dino-skin :x

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20120714_2 Red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) working on a pine cone | Gothenburg, Sweden

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:37:53 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

20120714_3 Red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) working on a pine cone | Gothenburg, Sweden

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:37:17 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

The pic kinda sucks, except of course you get a good view of a LITTLE ADORABLE SOFT WHITE SQUIRRELBELLY!!!!!!!!111 x) *POKE*

My mum and I were out walking and she was the first to spot this squirrel sitting... uh... 1-2 meters from the path (which ran along the edge of the woods). And the squirrels in the area aren't half-tame like they are in some places. WTF! :D Well, I hope s/he wasn't brain damaged or something. :p

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20120930_1 Utterly amazingly pine(?)-twig-like caterpillar!!! :D | Gothenburg, Sweden | Photos retained at full resolution - right-click to choose

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 09:06:32 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

(Pine was the first kind of twig I thought about, anyway...? :p ) Click here for a closer shot of the face.

I was walking home from a shroom hunt and spotted something on my fleece scarf: "Hmm, twig? poop? ARGH CATERPILLAR DO NOT SQUISH!" :D S/he stayed still for a long while, like a good twig, and was returned to the woods.

Totally looks like: This here non-aerodynamic-looking train type... that carried me on my most epic trips... :q

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20120622_03 Three climbing rats | Berlin, Germany

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 09:01:12 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

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20120622_16 ... HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A BIKE COVERED WITH SO MANY CLAMS & SPONGES? :O | Berlin, Germany

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 08:59:12 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

At least they look like clams and sponges... This was next to a canal.

Random: Wiki on sponge-use by dolphins: "A report in 1997 described use of sponges as a tool by bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay in Western Australia. A dolphin will attach a marine sponge to its rostrum, which is presumably then used to protect it when searching for food in the sandy sea bottom. The behavior, known as sponging, has only been observed in this bay, and is almost exclusively shown by females. A study in 2005 concluded that mothers teach the behavior to their daughters, and that all the sponge-users are closely related, suggesting that it is a fairly recent innovation."

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20120619_20 My first (and wholly pedestrian) shot of a grey heron (Ardea cinerea)! | By a canal in Berlin, Germany

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 11:48:49 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

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20120619_21 Some kinda door with owl on it | Berlin, Germany

nobody@flickr.com (ratexla) — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 08:52:07 -0800

ratexla posted a photo:

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