My first spider calendar

1 Reply

My Dad is always urging me to send photographs to the nature organizations he’s fond of, with the hope that someday I might be featured in the calendars they send to their members and he can brag to his friends. I’m sick of the nudging so I decided to just make him one. Went with spiders because he’s less likely to know when I’ve misidentified something (he’s an entomologist). If you want to see the original of any of the images, they are all hyperlinked.

Sharing here, in part, in case anyone with experience ordering photo calendars can point me to a better online printing service. This one was from Shutterfly and was fairly easy to set up and configure, but I want to find a company that allows different formats of text within a single text box so that it’s easier to include both vernacular name and Latin binomial. Also, the one I sent to my Dad for Christmas never actually arrived, so I’m a bit disappointed in Shutterfly. And $30 seems expensive (I realize a coupon would help). Anyone have suggestions?

Cover spider is a golden silk orbweaver (Trichonephila clavipes). See original.

I’m on Mastodon!

Leave a reply

Just a quick post to share my account handle: @colinpurrington@flipping.rocks. Plus a screenshot of my profile page in case anyone not on Mastodon is curious what the layout is like. If you need a break from Twitter, I highly recommend the platform.

I chose the flipping.rocks instance because it’s set up for people who like exploring the natural world through photography. But I also follow people from other servers who make interesting posts about biology, geology, archaeology, food, etc. Like Twitter, you can follow anyone who brings you joy, plus block or mute those who are annoying or boring. You can also turn off “boosting” (=retweeting) for otherwise interesting people who tend to overshare. There’s a little bit of learning curve but Mastodon is a very enjoyable social media platform, full of people who like to engage rather than just lurk. Plus no ads.

If you’re interested in joining, here’s a page that lists servers (instances) by location and topic. Your choice influences how your local “feed” is populated. So if you want to see lots of posts about your home city, see whether there’s a server for that (e.g., sfba.social). Similarly, if you’re obsessed with birds, choose a server that caters to bird people (e.g., birds.town). You can also see where your Twitter friends have landed by using Twitodon or other similar services.

A timeline of Spartan Mosquito

Leave a reply

Spartan Mosquito, a pesticide manufacturer based in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, is going to be in the news a lot. The big event will be in 2024 when the $5 million class-action trial is likely to begin, and that will likely attract journalists’ attention for several reasons. One is that the company is a hugely successful entity in Mississippi and claims to be one of the fastest-growing firms in the state. And the company’s products are hugely popular all over the south, so that means there are millions of people who will be interested in the trial’s outcome. Second, everyone hates mosquitoes.

But a smaller trial is also set to begin in June 23, 2023. That trail features me, so I’ll be interested, but I think it might get picked up by journalists, too, because of the nature of the lawsuit against me: it’s a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), a way for large corporations to silence, for example, guys who publish unfavorable reviews of scam products. I’m biased, perhaps, but I think it will be a national story.

Finally, there’s always a chance that the Environmental Protection Agency or the Federal Trade Commission will bring charges against the owners, as they have done with other mosquito-control products that haven’t lived up to promises.

Both scheduled cases are complicated and I thought a timeline would make it easier for interested folks to understand the major events. I’ve also included activities from state and federal pesticide regulators. The original timeline is here and I recommend you go to that site to enjoy the full functionality. One nice feature of that website is that events can be hyperlinked to relevant documents. The timeline starts in 2014 with the purchase of a Which Wich sandwich franchise.

If you see errors, please let me know and I’ll fix them.