@Lynnerizer@yakkoTDI Funny you should mention Queen. I was going to invest in this :
HOWEVER, during testing they killed my pet, Freddy the Fly. This was what really happened to Freddy Mercury. People don’t know he was a genius at physics, and actually created a matter transporter. You know what happened next …
@ellett@stinks Hey, we’ve got lots of skeeters down here on the Gulf Coast. But we also know that while zappers are class-A entertainment, they’re not worth diddly against the damn mosquitoes. (But their entertainment value has to be weighed against how the electrozaps can cause the Bluetooth and Wifi to glitch, too.)
Unfortunately, the bugs we need to zap around here right now aren’t solar. But give Google and the other data miners another six months, and we might need something that can zap electronic pests. I just don’t think they’d be drawn to these.
@Lynnerizer@therealjrn@werehatrack@yakkoTDI It’s an amalgamation of both. The Johnny Depp version of Willy and some characters are from “Charlie…” but the Grandpa Joe and some other characters are from “Willy…”
YES I agree with cinoclav, the original is a all time favorite! I don’t think I even got through half of the Johnny Depp version, I didn’t care for it.
@hugacrv@Lynnerizer@therealjrn@werehatrack@yakkoTDI The book is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They changed the title of the original movie to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in part for marketing of the new Wonka brand of candies being made by Quaker Oats as they were also funding the movie. It was also to emphasize the character of Wonka, and ironically to deemphasize the name Charlie since it came out around the time of the Vietnam War. Tim Burton did a remake starring Johnny Depp as Wonka and stuck to the original book name. There’s a newer movie just called Wonka, starring Timothy Chalamet, which is an origin story of Willy Wonka.
@visioneer_one these do nothing with, for or to mosquitoes, day or night. These only kill bugs drawn to UV and those tend to be harmless or actually beneficial insects. I wish they’d stop making these things and use their immense AI powers to develop something that is selective against mosquitoes.
@visioneer_one Most mosquitos are crepuscular, meaning they hunt at dawn and dusk, when the temperatures and winds are more moderate, and their wild targets are more active (deer, bunnies, coyotes, etc). If they don’t have a light sensor, they’ll run all day, but they’ll usually be depleted by dawn. And while bug zappers may kill a few mosquitos, which are more attracted to heat and CO2, zappers are better at killing moths and June bugs, which looks and sounds like Mr. Noodle’s Brother getting zapped in The Green Mile.
@andyw@chienfou@lichen@pmarin The fact that possums will eat a tick is overstated. They are scavengers and predators of opportunity. They will eat a tick if there is one to be had and they aren’t in pursuit of something better. They absolutely will not methodically hunt down all the ticks in their range because ticks are too damn small to be worth the effort to find them. But to the extent that any given tick tries to bite a possum, the tick is likely to end up as a microsnack.
Possums also raid bird and squirrel nests, and will eat both eggs and young. They will also eat small snakes and lizards that are incautious enough to get caught. And possums absolutely will raid a henhouse and attack even the adult hens.
Yes, possums were part of the natural ecosystem of their range in North America long before the European settlers imported the concept of the large human habitat, but that is what a modern city is, and it was not devised with possums and raccoons as part of it. The tolerance for them is rightfully situational, and the lack of any control on their population except us means that we actually have an ecological duty to be the apex predators that keep them in check. (The same is true for feral dog packs and feral cat colonies.)
@andyw@lichen@pmarin@werehatrack
actually nobody claims possums hunt ticks. They eat them while grooming. There is some debate about how much impact that has on the local tick population, but it certainly can’t hurt.
@andyw@chienfou@lichen@pmarin@werehatrack
In this neck of the woods (NW Oregon) raccoons and possums apparently compete for the same ecological niche. That is, sometimes there are cycles where the raccoons flourish, followed by a reign of the possums. We seldom see both in the same year.
Both are a PITA, especially if you keep poultry and/or have a garden (as we do).
@andyw@chienfou@lichen@pmarin@werehatrack Yes, people do claim that possums kill ticks. They claim that they are extremely effective tick-eradicators. I have only recently come to the sad discovery that this isn’t really how it works.
@PooltoyWolf The ecology of the large human habitation is not the possum’s ecology. Any animal or plant can be a pest outside of the ecology that evolved around and with it.
@PooltoyWolf
I have no problem with 'possums (or raccoons or snakes for that matter) being in my local environment. It’s MY job to protect MY property from their intrusions. As long as rabies is not an issue I will continue to let any raccoons etc. that I run across be, unless they’re actively involved in the destruction of my property. Then it’s game on.
@PooltoyWolf The possums were on this continent, but the ecology for which they are suited was never 100% of it, and there were always places where they didn’t fit. In the case of cities, even though they can thrive to the point of being absolute nuisances, this is not their native environment or ecology anymore, and their presence is not necessarily tolerable in it. Things change, even in the parts of the world where the human infestation does not reach. Where it does, they tend to change a lot.
@werehatrack In the average big city environment, I can think of no situation in which an opossum constitutes enough of a nuisance that you’d need to actively harm one. It is our duty as humans to work to prevent unwanted conflict with wild animals. Otherwise, we get what happened to the wolf and the bison over a hundred years ago.
@phendrick@werehatrack If you are referring to inflatables, the closest custom made one I know of was a ram, but I think LifeWay Christian Stores may have released an inflatable buffalo decades ago as part of one of their themed vacation bible school sets.
We have seen one in our backyard occasionally, but they keep different hours than we do. Also, there are many in other areas, even with possums, although I guess they help. Thanks for the idea and thought, though.
@andyw
And to be honest there is still some question as to whether (o)possums are effective tick control or whether that’s just myth. My personal preference is to give them the benefit of the doubt as it helps me to overcome my displeasure with them after eating my chickens in the past!
@andyw@chienfou Holy smokes! Possums ate your chickens? Possums around here are pretty passive, but I guess we have plenty of trash food lying around the neighborhood.
Are the batteries NiCd, Lithium, or NiMH?
And the movie reference is a mix of at least two different versions of Charlie, Willy, and the Chocolate Factory movies. It might even include a subtle reference to the most recent (2023) version called “Wonka”.
@sdansmith I said it was Charlie on the strength of the fact that the Wonka is clearly Johnny Depp, and the Grandpa looks more like Jack Albertson to me.
$4.50 apiece for these kinda lights is not bad. But the average lifespan for solar-charging stake lights (in Florida at least) is 6-8 months. For longevity beyond that, you need lights that use electricity that flows through wires…
@MrNews yup. These are built to last past the return period. Solar panels are too small, charging circuit is brutal and waterproofing is barely attempted.
@chienfou@Kyeh@therealjrn@tkuj I’ve noticed that bird presence seems inversely proportionate to altitude, which makes sense since flight requires more effort as the air thins out. But I’ve also seen pigeons all the way up to 11,000 ft. (Of course, at those altitudes, the naturalist placards label them as “rock doves”. This has caused me to quip that the rock dove is the spirit animal of the newbie amateur wildlife photographer who has essentially never been outside of a city - and has paid precious little attention to the wildlife in their native environment. “Ooooh, look at the iridescent feathers on the neck and shoulders of those birds over there!”)
@chienfou@mediocrebot That looks TOO REAL!
I saw/heard some music videos on Instagram last night that come across as disturbingly “real” although they were openly AI generated. The whole thing from lyrics to melodies to the fake celebrities performing them. It’s pretty unnerving.
@chienfou@Kyeh@mediocrebot There’s a comedian, Jimmy Dore, I follow, on a YouTube that showed him “making” a song live one time using AI. I can see why musicians and actors are getting nervous.
@chienfou@Kyeh@mediocrebot if you ever see a video of me dancing and/or singing with anything close to talent you can bet your bottom dollar it’s fake!
Ahem. These destroy my toys, and reduce the food supply for my entertainment birds and lizards. I disapprove of them as bug zappers. Please use them only in their decorative-lighting mode.
Specs
Product: Ideaworks Solar Insect Zapper Stakes
Model: JB9282S2
Condition: New
What’s Included?
Warranty
90 days
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Jan 26 - Tuesday, Jan 27
Hmmmmmmm… I do miss that zappy sound at nights.
@yakkoTDI
Another one bites the dust, is that the sound you miss?
@Lynnerizer @yakkoTDI Funny you should mention Queen. I was going to invest in this :
HOWEVER, during testing they killed my pet, Freddy the Fly. This was what really happened to Freddy Mercury. People don’t know he was a genius at physics, and actually created a matter transporter. You know what happened next …
/showme Fly with head of Freddie Mercury.
Something went terribly wrong. Please try again.
@mediocrebot That’s ok, I will let people’s imagination finish the job.
90-day warranty and Meh is selling these in the middle of winter?! So if we put these out in… May, maybe… how long a warranty do we really get?
@ellett Carry the one… I think that’s none. You have to move to Australia now.
@ellett @stinks Hey, we’ve got lots of skeeters down here on the Gulf Coast. But we also know that while zappers are class-A entertainment, they’re not worth diddly against the damn mosquitoes. (But their entertainment value has to be weighed against how the electrozaps can cause the Bluetooth and Wifi to glitch, too.)
/showme gnats in my margarita
@stinks Here’s the image you requested for “gnats in my margarita”
@stinks Wasn’t “gnats in my margarita” the sequel song to “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)”?
Hank, being male, lacked the mouthparts to suck out mammalian blood-- only Tanya could do that. So, alas, it was all for naught. . .
@ahansen
/youtube woody Allen bananas movie snake bite
All right fine, the flavor text was very funny.
Sadly, bug zappers are not effective at killing mosquitoes. They do kill bugs. Just not the right ones.
@Zott Got that right. Maybe Meh should sell bats!
@Felyne @Zott I DO have bats. Didn’t invite them; they were here on their own! Some people build bat-houses/apartments but I haven’t done that yet.
Unfortunately, the bugs we need to zap around here right now aren’t solar. But give Google and the other data miners another six months, and we might need something that can zap electronic pests. I just don’t think they’d be drawn to these.
@werehatrack yes, we’re heading there.
Not sure what the Ai will bring up here…
/showme bug zapper vs Boston Dynamics robot
@pmarin Here’s the image you requested for “bug zapper vs Boston Dynamics robot”
@mediocrebot not bad, Ai, not bad…
Edit it doesn’t show who wins, though.
Taking bets??
@mediocrebot @pmarin Two cents on the 'bot. Because Boston Dynamics.
So easy to phone this one in …
The movie is obviously Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
@werehatrack Close but no zappy for you.
The movie inspiration is the 1971 hit Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
@werehatrack @yakkoTDI I was believing her, lol.
I was ok with Charlie and forgot Willie Wonka.
@therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
Well, TBT, it was close enough that I think we ALL KNEW what movie was being referenced.
Jus sayen…!
@Lynnerizer @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI It’s an amalgamation of both. The Johnny Depp version of Willy and some characters are from “Charlie…” but the Grandpa Joe and some other characters are from “Willy…”
@hugacrv @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
Oh wow I wasn’t thinking they were talking about two different movies. And I totally forgot about the Johnny Depp movie.
@hugacrv @Lynnerizer @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
good observation
@hugacrv @Lynnerizer @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI This. The original is my favorite movie of all time. The remake was terrible. I’m actually offended they put Jack Albertson in there with Johnny Depp.
@cinoclav @hugacrv @Lynnerizer @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
Wait…so there is a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie?
@cinoclav @hugacrv @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
YES I agree with cinoclav, the original is a all time favorite! I don’t think I even got through half of the Johnny Depp version, I didn’t care for it.
@hugacrv @Lynnerizer @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI The book is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They changed the title of the original movie to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in part for marketing of the new Wonka brand of candies being made by Quaker Oats as they were also funding the movie. It was also to emphasize the character of Wonka, and ironically to deemphasize the name Charlie since it came out around the time of the Vietnam War. Tim Burton did a remake starring Johnny Depp as Wonka and stuck to the original book name. There’s a newer movie just called Wonka, starring Timothy Chalamet, which is an origin story of Willy Wonka.
@hugacrv @Lynnerizer @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
As well you should!
@cinoclav @hugacrv @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
Thanks for all the background cinoclav.
I’m going to check out the movie Wonka, I don’t think I knew of it.
@hugacrv @Lynnerizer @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI Wonka was surprisingly entertaining. There’s a lot of history with the first two movies that I won’t bore you with.
@cinoclav @hugacrv @Lynnerizer @therealjrn @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
For years/decades I listened to the music from Verucka Salt and forgot that was the name of the “I want it all. I want it now!” Girl in the original…
@hugacrv @Lynnerizer @therealjrn @werehatrack
When I looked last night the Grandpa Joe was so obvious I missed the Deppified Willy.
@hugacrv @Lynnerizer @werehatrack @yakkoTDI
/showme a Deppified Willy
Something went terribly wrong. Please try again.
How do you change the colors, and what colors does it change to?
@cforq Blood red?
Unclear as to whether these work during the day daytime as well as night. I’m looking to kill mosquitos which aren’t nocturnal.
@visioneer_one these do nothing with, for or to mosquitoes, day or night. These only kill bugs drawn to UV and those tend to be harmless or actually beneficial insects. I wish they’d stop making these things and use their immense AI powers to develop something that is selective against mosquitoes.
@visioneer_one Most mosquitos are crepuscular, meaning they hunt at dawn and dusk, when the temperatures and winds are more moderate, and their wild targets are more active (deer, bunnies, coyotes, etc). If they don’t have a light sensor, they’ll run all day, but they’ll usually be depleted by dawn. And while bug zappers may kill a few mosquitos, which are more attracted to heat and CO2, zappers are better at killing moths and June bugs, which looks and sounds like Mr. Noodle’s Brother getting zapped in The Green Mile.
@Jonas4321 @visioneer_one agreed. These are a gimmick and actually harmful to the environment.
There should be an environmental law against the manufacture of devices or practices that perform constant, indiscriminate insect slaughter.
@jzagray
If they attracted and killed ticks…
@andyw
Get a possum…?
@andyw @chienfou you dropped an O
@andyw @lichen
Local variance…
Tho technically “possums” are found in Australia
@chienfou @lichen Yes, that is a very common way of referring to it here in the Northeast (of the USA) and in West Virginia, where my wife was raised.
@andyw @chienfou @lichen so you are opposed to calling them’possums?
@andyw @chienfou @pmarin do they eat ticks?
@andyw @chienfou @lichen @pmarin The fact that possums will eat a tick is overstated. They are scavengers and predators of opportunity. They will eat a tick if there is one to be had and they aren’t in pursuit of something better. They absolutely will not methodically hunt down all the ticks in their range because ticks are too damn small to be worth the effort to find them. But to the extent that any given tick tries to bite a possum, the tick is likely to end up as a microsnack.
Possums also raid bird and squirrel nests, and will eat both eggs and young. They will also eat small snakes and lizards that are incautious enough to get caught. And possums absolutely will raid a henhouse and attack even the adult hens.
Yes, possums were part of the natural ecosystem of their range in North America long before the European settlers imported the concept of the large human habitat, but that is what a modern city is, and it was not devised with possums and raccoons as part of it. The tolerance for them is rightfully situational, and the lack of any control on their population except us means that we actually have an ecological duty to be the apex predators that keep them in check. (The same is true for feral dog packs and feral cat colonies.)
@andyw @lichen @pmarin @werehatrack
actually nobody claims possums hunt ticks. They eat them while grooming. There is some debate about how much impact that has on the local tick population, but it certainly can’t hurt.
@chienfou @lichen @pmarin That’s my kind of pun, but it didn’t occur to me-congratulations.
@andyw @chienfou @lichen @pmarin @werehatrack
In this neck of the woods (NW Oregon) raccoons and possums apparently compete for the same ecological niche. That is, sometimes there are cycles where the raccoons flourish, followed by a reign of the possums. We seldom see both in the same year.
Both are a PITA, especially if you keep poultry and/or have a garden (as we do).
@andyw @lichen @macromeh @pmarin
amen to that! I’ve lost flocks to each and it is a PITA to critter-proof the run and coop.
@andyw @chienfou @lichen @pmarin @werehatrack Yes, people do claim that possums kill ticks. They claim that they are extremely effective tick-eradicators. I have only recently come to the sad discovery that this isn’t really how it works.
@andyw @chienfou @lichen @pmarin @werehatrack The Virginia opossum is beneficial to its ecology and should never be considered a pest or nuisance animal.
@PooltoyWolf The ecology of the large human habitation is not the possum’s ecology. Any animal or plant can be a pest outside of the ecology that evolved around and with it.
@werehatrack The opossum was here first, point blank.
@PooltoyWolf
I have no problem with 'possums (or raccoons or snakes for that matter) being in my local environment. It’s MY job to protect MY property from their intrusions. As long as rabies is not an issue I will continue to let any raccoons etc. that I run across be, unless they’re actively involved in the destruction of my property. Then it’s game on.
@PooltoyWolf The possums were on this continent, but the ecology for which they are suited was never 100% of it, and there were always places where they didn’t fit. In the case of cities, even though they can thrive to the point of being absolute nuisances, this is not their native environment or ecology anymore, and their presence is not necessarily tolerable in it. Things change, even in the parts of the world where the human infestation does not reach. Where it does, they tend to change a lot.
@werehatrack In the average big city environment, I can think of no situation in which an opossum constitutes enough of a nuisance that you’d need to actively harm one. It is our duty as humans to work to prevent unwanted conflict with wild animals. Otherwise, we get what happened to the wolf and the bison over a hundred years ago.
@PooltoyWolf @werehatrack
I know wolves have been plasticized…
But has that happened to bison also?
@phendrick @werehatrack If you are referring to inflatables, the closest custom made one I know of was a ram, but I think LifeWay Christian Stores may have released an inflatable buffalo decades ago as part of one of their themed vacation bible school sets.
We have seen one in our backyard occasionally, but they keep different hours than we do. Also, there are many in other areas, even with possums, although I guess they help. Thanks for the idea and thought, though.
@andyw
And to be honest there is still some question as to whether (o)possums are effective tick control or whether that’s just myth. My personal preference is to give them the benefit of the doubt as it helps me to overcome my displeasure with them after eating my chickens in the past!
@andyw @chienfou Holy smokes! Possums ate your chickens? Possums around here are pretty passive, but I guess we have plenty of trash food lying around the neighborhood.
@andyw @macphoenix
eyp, they will totally rip up a chicken on a roost or in a nesting box if they can get to it. Sux!!
@andyw @chienfou @macphoenix They (possums) also enjoy fresh eggs.
@andyw @chienfou @macphoenix And English muffins, I hear, @macromeh
Are the batteries NiCd, Lithium, or NiMH?
And the movie reference is a mix of at least two different versions of Charlie, Willy, and the Chocolate Factory movies. It might even include a subtle reference to the most recent (2023) version called “Wonka”.
@sdansmith I said it was Charlie on the strength of the fact that the Wonka is clearly Johnny Depp, and the Grandpa looks more like Jack Albertson to me.
$4.50 apiece for these kinda lights is not bad. But the average lifespan for solar-charging stake lights (in Florida at least) is 6-8 months. For longevity beyond that, you need lights that use electricity that flows through wires…
@MrNews yup. These are built to last past the return period. Solar panels are too small, charging circuit is brutal and waterproofing is barely attempted.
Killing bugs, you deplete part of the food chain for your song birds!
@tkuj
/giphy circle of life
@tkuj And risk killing pollinators, too.
@Kyeh @tkuj
yep. My wife was really surprised by how few birds were in Colorado when we lived in Boulder in the 70’s
Less bugs= less birds
@chienfou @tkuj Amazing GIF.
@chienfou @Kyeh @tkuj
Shazbat!
@chienfou @Kyeh @therealjrn @tkuj I’ve noticed that bird presence seems inversely proportionate to altitude, which makes sense since flight requires more effort as the air thins out. But I’ve also seen pigeons all the way up to 11,000 ft. (Of course, at those altitudes, the naturalist placards label them as “rock doves”. This has caused me to quip that the rock dove is the spirit animal of the newbie amateur wildlife photographer who has essentially never been outside of a city - and has paid precious little attention to the wildlife in their native environment. “Ooooh, look at the iridescent feathers on the neck and shoulders of those birds over there!”)
@tkuj Nah, just culling the inferior stock. For which the song birds sing our praises every morning.
@werehatrack
God know the undersea world is rife with avian creatures!
/showme a guy named chienfou being an unapologetic smartass to an online poster for laughs
Something went terribly wrong. Please try again.
@werehatrack
Sorry… Just HAD to go there
@werehatrack
/showme a guy named chienfou being a smartass to an online poster in the meh forum
@chienfou Here’s the image you requested for “a guy named chienfou being a smartass to an online poster in the meh forum”
@mediocrebot
Ok… Not exactly what I had in mind. (But funny none the less)
I KNEW you wore a fedora @chienfou! Lol
@chienfou @mediocrebot
That looks TOO REAL!
I saw/heard some music videos on Instagram last night that come across as disturbingly “real” although they were openly AI generated. The whole thing from lyrics to melodies to the fake celebrities performing them. It’s pretty unnerving.
@chienfou @Kyeh @mediocrebot There’s a comedian, Jimmy Dore, I follow, on a YouTube that showed him “making” a song live one time using AI. I can see why musicians and actors are getting nervous.
@chienfou @Kyeh @mediocrebot if you ever see a video of me dancing and/or singing with anything close to talent you can bet your bottom dollar it’s fake!
Ahem. These destroy my toys, and reduce the food supply for my entertainment birds and lizards. I disapprove of them as bug zappers. Please use them only in their decorative-lighting mode.
@FreyaCat
/showme a scale trying to balance between an ideaworks solar bug zapper on one side and bugs and birds and a cat on the other
@chienfou Here’s the image you requested for “a scale trying to balance between an ideaworks solar bug zapper on one side and bugs and birds an…”