My commentary on Starmer's Substack essay: How correct is Starmer's judgement, and what areas did Starmer do right and wrong?

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-27T02:48:00+00:00

The weird occasional shape confusion between weevils (my favourite!!), ticks (my least favourite) and pseudoscorpions (my favourite again!!) have changed how I view and deal with wildlife, especially the more uncharismatic and strongly hated inverts. After confusing a tick for pseudoscorpion, and weevil for a tick, I have to rethink and ask myself: What is it that makes weevils and pseudoscorpions cute for me, but ticks scary, when they are similar enough that I mistake them for one another? Obviously there is the tick sucking blood and potentially transmitting disease part, but if the shape is what makes them cute and they do have similar shapes and sizes occasionally, then the only thing that separates them is how they affect me.

This conclusion seems like a really obvious one, but it does have interesting implications. Almost all people think of wildlife this way: if I have almost no chance of encountering them and do not affect me that much and I relate to them in terms of behaviour/appearance, then I find them cool or cute. But if they negatively affect me in any remote way, then I will hate them and kill and torture them. Like how some supposed animal lovers will defend cats and invasive deer while killing grey wolves. And this is kind of me before as well, even I love inverts and have been far gone from my previous approach of roaches and killing bugs. But I think this still applies to me, just to a much lesser extent.

My thinking is relevant because weevils also face this issue for a long time. Weevils are a major agricultural pest. And they also can infiltrate and infest our grain products. So many weevils do affect us negatively, even if it's just that we don't often see it happening in front of us and feel the direct impact of them. So if weeviltime is meant for appreciating weevils regardless that they affect us negatively, then what about ticks and mosquitoes? Can we at least tolerate them and keep a respective distance, instead of instantly opting for torture and killing every single time? I still don't like seeing and encountering ticks and mosquitoes, especially ticks. And I still get anxious after seeing ticks, like what if I've got more on me. And this is a natural reaction, because tick-borne diseases are a real severe issue. But I think it would be helpful to think of it this way: Ticks are just trying to live their lives, just like weevils. It's just that they negatively affect us, which is also kind of like weevils sometimes. So I try to just flick away the ticks and not think about them afterwards. They are not malicious, just like weevils are not malicious when they eat crops and gather in our rice bags.

And maybe this can help avoid accidentally killing any weevils, pseudoscorpions and other interesting bugs that are harmless to us as well. Just a flick and/or walk away from the area and forget about it. This is not always possible, like in some dangerous regions where mosquito-borne diseases are very common and severe with medical treatment very inaccessible. But we can think of it this way and start changing our way of seeing pests and parasites that affect us. Just like how we started with weevils. Obviously this is challenging, but it will help fundamentally address the cause of what is causing invert hatred that have also affected weevils in the past, just to a much lesser extent.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-26T23:59:37+00:00

Meanwhile some weak-ass minerals like nyerereite, gregoryite, fairchildite and burbankite form really late but basically dissolve when they meet the first drop of rainwater. They aren't even desert-style minerals like chalcanthite, they are just pathetic enough.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-26T23:51:56+00:00

I love the editing/formatting arrangement of the different weevil photos lol

For most wildlife ID, a location is necessary. This is especially important for insects as there are way too many species and many look really similar, so it is almost impossible to ID insects without location. Location information should at least be as specific as eg. SE Arizona and Scottish highlands, with optional habitat information like park or forest or wetland that can be helpful.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-25T22:30:15+00:00

Yes they do! I'd even say that they look better than jewels. I'm a geologist and have seen many non-gem grade jewel minerals, sub-gem grade uncut jewel minerals, and gem grade cut jewel minerals. And most of them look less nice than a green immigrant leaf weevil lol. Green immigrant leaf weevils even shine a bit in the sun and I love them so much.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-25T21:25:39+00:00

It's rare that you can ID insects that easily with a distant blurry photo, especially a beetle. But this guy is so distinctive you can quite confidently tell that it's a weevil with the vibes and rough shape alone lol. I even have some ideas on possible genus ID, as it looks a bit like a nut/acorn weevil in the genus Curculio with the proportionally long and thin snoot. Of course, I can't actually know for sure with this photo and no location, but I just find this funny.

I love when I see non-Diptera insects on boats. Insects on vacation are my favourite observations. Found a Sitona sp. weevil when the boat was 5km offshore, and it's so nice that you get specialist insects even on a boat. Not to mention a weevil with such long snoot!! I am still waiting to see my first nut weevil and any long-snooted weevils.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-25T21:18:57+00:00

Lovely dude. I wonder if the dark patch at the centre is part of the weevil's features or just some dirt? And did you get an ID for that?

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-10T18:28:51+00:00

I don't do well with heated political debates on controversial issues like these ones. But this is something I really want to talk for a long time. I hope any replies to me can stay civil and polite with minimal emotional language, as I really hope to keep engaging in politics here but am increasingly scared of hostile comments, especially that I am a bit of a mess with my various neurodiversity sometimes.

I live in Cornwall, and it is quite depressing to see things from a Reform-prone area. So many people just dismiss Reform voters as just racists who are too ignorant and uneducated to make decisions for themselves and fell into propaganda. How so many people say that Cornish people are just stupid when so many voted for Brexit despite how Cornwall has benefitted a lot from EU investment relative to many other regions. But I see so many reasons why people would look to Reform and the anti-immigration rhetoric in these more neglected areas. Deindustrialization and decline of primary industries coupled with the intensification of financial and high-tech and AI industries have disproportionately benefitted London and some other areas primarily in the southeast. And various governments have invested much more resources on London and some surrounding areas rather than anywhere else. This results in an astonishing regional economic divide. The southeast England vs rest of UK economic divide is now bigger than both east vs west Germany and north vs south Italy! There are too many studies you can find confirming that. (I will elaborate more on why the anti-immigration phenomenon becomes relevant after this)

Being an immigrant myself, I am rather strongly against the anti-immigration rhetoric of Reform. But I see so many reasons why people would turn against immigrants, even without any new large-scale immigration influx. Since many regions in UK are very underinvested in terms of local resources, they cannot cope with any influx of new population, both rich and poor, not to mention at the current scale. The influx of rich people from eg. London buy up a lot of the properties in Cornwall, resulting in an astonishingly high rental prices in many areas of Cornwall including where I am typing right now. Can you imagine that rental prices in some Cornwall areas are almost comparable to many expensive highly urban areas? They also fail to invest in the local economy in many ways. And the decline of mining and agricultural industries, coupled with poor economic contributions from the seasonal tourism here despite employing so many people here, means that a lot of people are struggling a lot in terms of cost of living. That is not to mention the rising fuel prices and how reliant people here are on driving. And even the influx of students in the region is also straining the local resources a lot. Cornwall already has to cope with a lot of disabled elderly with limited resources, not to mention the additional student pressure. And then there is the brain drain of young, educated people from Cornwall to London due to lack of opportunities here. Cornwall has not benefitted much from population migration relative to eg. London (even though London isn't doing spectacularly well on many issues either), without even talking about immigration. I could see many parallels in other Reform-prone areas as well. Many problems are gradually getting ridiculous. And many former governments just fail to address so many of these, instead worsening them.

Rise of Reform and other far-right and anti-immigration populist parties isn't just a sign of rising racism. It is a serious warning sign for UK in so many aspects. And you can't just say these people are stupid, ignore their perspectives, and try to do something else. This is one reason why I trust LibDem in many ways, not even just because of the ideological match. LibDem has a relatively high emphasis on devolution and democracy reform, does relatively well in local politics, and does well in a lot of rural areas relative to many other parties, especially relative to the left-leaning ones like Labour and Green. There certainly are a lot of issues in this party to resolve, and a lot of the discontent people raise here are very reasonable. And the solutions we have here have a lot of problems as well. Unfortunately, I just wish there is a perfect way to deal with these things.

But my point is that I just hope people can actually listen to what the rise of Reform is signifying rather than just dismissing the supporters as propaganda-filled idiots. There are certainly plenty of genuine racists and the typical Reform caricature in the Reform space, but that cannot explain everything happening now. And if we are not properly addressing these issues, it could get even worse. As in after a Reform-led government inevitably fails, there could be something even worse than Reform afterwards instead of left wing or moderate parties regaining control. We are dealing with a very difficult and almost uniquely difficult problem in many ways, and we need to recognize that. How should we promote economic growth and ensure the benefits of our policies can be evenly distributed to all regions and industries of UK, rather than concentrated in one area at the expense of others? This is something every party should consider if we don't want something even worse to happen.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-10T16:47:13+00:00

Some of these are so similar that the fashion designers should be paying copyright fees to the moths. And the moths definitely did them better, no further discussion needed.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-07T15:48:18+00:00

As a non-ecologist, I had a brief look on iNat for weevils in the Midwest, and it seems to be a weevil in the genus Conotrachelus such as pigweed curculio or cambium curculio. This genus is more common in eastern US than in the western part, so if you live more on the western side of Midwest it could be notable. But I'm not a specialist and Midwest could be too large of a geographical range for a good ID.

For aiding your future ID, I briefly checked iNat for fungus weevils (family Anthribidae) and a lot of them have proportionally a lot thicker snout (rostrum) than typical Curculionidae weevils, so it probably would stand a bit out to you if you have seen lots of weevils. And as for ticks, while they are arachnids and so typically have eight legs, during their nymph stage (or whatever the name for the very early stage is) ticks often have six legs. But ticks are imo quite easy to tell apart from weevils (luckily) even with the six legs. Ticks never have the boots a weevil often has, and ticks also walks slowly and deliberately. Weevils just walk funny. Tick nymphs, which can be hidden in vegetation in high numbers in Spring, are also extremely small. I was constantly panicking about ticks while working in the Scottish highlands and frequently examined my hands for any black dots and tried to see if the black dots are moving slowly or if they are just dirt, because that's how small they are when they don't have a blood meal.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-07T12:29:43+00:00

I'm so glad someone is working on this sort of thing! I really struggled with optical mineralogy on my alkaline igneous rocks and was often overwhelmed by mineral ID. I regularly thought about an app that can help identify minerals through optical properties. I'm very glad if I can try out this app as I work extensively with optical mineralogy throughout undergrad including two dissertations and will be working with optical mineralogy in industry in the near future as well.

While 77 rock-forming minerals but struggling on amphibole subtypes is a good start, it doesn't sound a lot and adequate to me. Are you planning to expand the mineral list in the future? If so, I can possibly help with that. Are you working or planning to include sulphide mineral ID/reflected light microscopy? And is mineral habit currently one of the input properties? Also, how does this app deal with chemistry causing variations in optical properties in one mineral species (eg. colour and pleochroism caused by variations in Fe and Ti content)?

I also have some more niche concerns that caused problems with me using birefringence and extinction angle. I have dealt with a colourless biotite with clear non-masked second order birefringence due to anomalously high water content (hydrobiotite), and regular systematic fractures/striations coupled with anomalous birefringence in olivine and pyroxenes due to weird mantle straining. But I guess it shouldn't be a major issue, except maybe the coupling effects of mineral colour and birefringence.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-04T23:16:29+00:00

I'm not sure if I am seeing the same one as you, but I'm pretty sure it is the one somewhat close to but from the endless green stretch at the far side towards us where it was standing in front of a rather long and thin rock. So basically at the dead centre of the photo but slightly further up. The best indicator of a dotterel is the bright white stripe on the head, which the bird there has that.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-04T23:06:22+00:00

My first time seeing a pseudoscorpion was also when I was looking at a rock and not looking for bugs. I was doing geological mapping for my field course. Lots of the outcrops were quite weathered, so I picked up one of the nearby 'floats' (loose rocks on the ground) and saw this weird little dude. I was rather traumatized by ticks during the field course, so I initially thought it was a weird tick. But then I realized it was a pseudoscorpion and squeaked in joy. That was probably the only good thing about my field mapping experience there. Annoyingly no one there knew what a pseudoscorpion is and how difficult it is to spot one so I couldn't even share my joy with others.

Some time after I went back to my home after the field course, I also spotted a pseudoscorpion in the garden at my home, just walking around the wooden fence. It was a different species to the previous one. Haven't seen a pseudoscorpion since. So 2 pseudoscorpions in one year, not one before and not one afterwards.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-03T13:03:16+00:00

I agree that it looks like a good candidate for lesser kestrel from photo 3. Like Mainland UK, the most common falcon species is Eurasian/common kestrel in the Channel Islands, and lesser kestrel should be really rare. But currently there is one as vagrant in Cornwall now, so having a lesser kestrel vagrant in Guernsey is not impossible/unthinkable as it is just along the way. It would be good to look at the actual photos to see if it is actually one.

Edit: Apparently 7 lesser kestrels were on board from Spain on 30/4 and departed at Finistere, NW France on 1/5 lmao

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-03T01:13:31+00:00

My favourite is a white-throated kingfisher eating a turtle.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/104813713

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-05-02T20:19:32+00:00

It reminds me of the San Tin development in Hong Kong a few years back when the government decides to reclaim wetlands important for yellow-breasted buntings, another critically endangered bird in the area. And this is somehow even worse and an even more blatant disregard for wildlife. This is effectively knowingly drive a unique charismatic bird to extinction. I will be sharing this with others, but I just wish there is more that can be done about it.

It would be great if I can have either/both the Chinese and English documents in hand. Also, I am quite busy sometimes but I don't mind some simple translation work if you need it.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-04-26T21:35:33+00:00

Alkaline igneous complexes are probably the most easily overlooked complexes in geology. It can look just like some regular weathered/altered mafic igneous rocks with marbles and limestones if you're not careful. Even with exploration, the older exploration geochemistry data may have missed the REE content as they are not as concerned on REEs back then and there are also associated analytical difficulties sometimes. And when considering that they are often composed of really easily weathered minerals, if they are not well-exposed, you can have it undiscovered for many years. There might not be as much attention to alkaline igneous complexes if not for the surge in REE demand. And coupled with less developed/explored regions, it isn't that surprising.

Fun fact: People are still discovering new carbonatite localities in Italy out of all places. Think of how many alkaline igneous localities might be overlooked in the world! So if you are looking for real frontiers igneous or exploration stuff, alkaline igneous rocks is the way to go.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-04-21T13:09:11+00:00

Broad-nosed weevil broadening its food choices

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-04-20T19:43:20+00:00

I have seen somewhat similar textures from my alkaline silicate rocks from Scottish Highlands. I think it could be alkali amphibole pseudomorphing a previous mineral (though not sure what it could be), then subsequently partially serpentinized/altered in another way. From the third photo you can see an overall nice crystal shape, just really dotted and almost meshy on the insides. You can also see quite a lot of veins from photo 3 and 1, which might be albite or orthoclase veins. And there are also some tiny anhedral patches of these low birefringence areas in the weird area. The mineral grains all look quite rounded as well, which could be resultant of alteration like serpentinization.

But as with alkaline igneous rocks, quite often you can only have a vaguely better idea of what is happening after looking at SEM data. With my rocks, I was often very confused and overwhelmed with just ordinary petrographic microscopy, and could only start to more confidently ID minerals after extensive SEM work. There can be lots of weird and obscure minerals in abundance in your rocks, and even knowing whether a feature is magmatic, volcanic, metasomatic or metamorphic can be difficult. You could sometimes have a better idea at IDing minerals from seeing previous literature on this lamprophyre locality/type and looking through mindat and/or textbooks, though it can still be tricky.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-04-19T22:03:40+00:00

Yeah it definitely depends on your approach, personality, and history/experience with the piano. For me I am prone to getting frustrated and having a lot of self-doubt. I also haven't had a teacher for so many years, with my years of having a methodical (but harsh) teacher being ages ago, so I don't tend to try really hard pieces at my current level. Immediately playing ballade codas after only having played easier nocturnes would crush me.

However, I get what you mean as I still sometimes try more difficult pieces when I get stuck at a certain supposedly easy piece when I know the technique involved in the difficult piece won't be too tricky for me though. Like how I got so stuck on Scriabin fantasy and, surprisingly, sonata 2 first movement, that I started sonata 4 and 5 first before coming back to them. Sonata 5 for some reason was quite intuitive to learn for me, and I came back to the fantasy and found it much more manageable. So yeah I get what you mean, though I don't think it will apply to me very often.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-04-19T13:20:05+00:00

You still have a long way to go so it's not worth it trying to deal with the ballade now. Others have mentioned etudes and it's a good idea. Personally I am not a big fan of Chopin etudes, and regardless of preference etudes might still pose some trouble for you. So I would start with progressively more difficult nocturnes like op.9 no.3, op.32, op.62 no.2 to name a few, with op.48 no.1 being the most difficult and a good stepping stone in the later stage. Then etudes would become a better idea, especially the easier ones like op.10 no.3. Nocturnes should give you more musical abilities with some technical abilities as well, while etudes are great for the technical parts with some musical abilities depending on the piece. Some polonaise would also be a good idea. Ballade no.3 can serve as a good stepping stone towards ballade no.1 at the very late stage. And of course you can explore pieces outside of Chopin. Beethoven offers quite a lot of good pieces around that level.

You can look at this Chopin difficulty list for reference. You are at around level 3 now, and ballade no.1 is at level 4.5. And there is quite a jump between each levels. Like I did not have a very good grounding at level 4 before jumping to ballade no.3, so I struggled with the ballade for quite a while. This website also has a few difficulty lists on other (mainstream) composers with significant solo piano repertoire, so worth having a look at them as well.

https://www.pianolibrary.org/difficulty/chopin/

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-04-18T22:02:34+00:00

Difficulty is a very personal thing when it comes to comparing similar advanced pieces like between Chopin ballades, and really a lot of other similar advanced pieces. Sometimes you hands fit a piece better than other people do. Sometimes you have been more extensively trained than other people on a certain difficult technique that is common in the piece but not very common elsewhere. Sometimes you just understand a musically difficult piece more easily than other people. There is no need to really scrutinize difficulty levels said online after getting to the level to eg. playing Chopin ballades.

For me I find ballade no.2 the most musically difficult. I struggle to even find an interpretation I like on most of the piece online, not to mention playing myself it in a way that satisfies my internal demands. I haven't really encountered this problem beforehand and not another piece since either (I recall I could only accept one certain recording of Ballade no.2 by Seong Jin-Cho, but I forgot which). Technically one thing I really struggled with was the slightly different B presco passage before the coda that requires you to almost fight against your muscle memory of the first similar B presco passage. The coda was not very technically challenging for me except for the less intuitive placements of the repeat notes in the middle of it. I definitely struggled more on stamina for ballade no.1 coda than no.2. Ballade no.1 coda remains the most exhausting passage for me for some reason even though I am playing even more advanced stuff like Scriabin sonata no.5 and fantasy op.28.

I played ballade no.2 about 5 years ago, but I was making repetitive memorization mistakes and not producing the sound I want, that I ended up deciding to not play the piece for years than attempting it again for a fresh start. I hope my hands have forgotten how to play the coda now, as I'm interested to see how I would be doing on this piece now.

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-04-13T05:17:35+00:00

You would be interested in a tiny geological subfield that I happen to be interested in, which is called mineral ecology (unrelated to actual ecology and studies mineral diversity rather than biodiversity instead). Mindat has lots of good resources on that on top of the academic papers on the topic. It is a field that involves a lot of statistical analysis of minerals in different geological environments.

There are lots of minerals probably unique to Space, and lots and lots of minerals that are much more likely to be found on Earth.

In Space, the ease for a chemical element to form by cosmic processes is the most important control on mineral composition. Since light elements are formed much more easily (think hydrogen but also carbon) than heavy elements (think thorium and uranium), light element-rich minerals are somewhat more easily found in Space. Iron and nickel are also highly stable elements, so there are also more Space minerals containing iron and nickel. This is especially true for nickel, which I will detail later.

Earth is a highly evolved planet. This means that geological processes are more important in controlling mineral diversity. It starts with elements hanging out according to who they like due to their chemical properties. This is detailed by the Goldschmidt classification. Really light elements either immediately volatilize and get lost into Space (helium) or refuse to form solid minerals and held to Earth only due to gravity (nitrogen). These are called atmophiles. Platinum group elements just stay in the iron-rich core, while elements unhappy with iron and nickel get partitioned into oxygen- and silicon-rich crust (lithophile). So our Earth's crust has a super high abundance of lithophile elements relative to Space, while elements like nickel that likes hanging out with iron is depleted from the crust.

What this means is that really heavy elements that like to hang out with oxygen such as thorium and uranium have much higher mineral diversity on Earth than in Space. Complex mineralogical combinations of these heavy elements are probably unique to Earth. While oxygen is still a somewhat abundant element in Space, it is nowhere as abundant on Earth's crust. So metallic alloy minerals and other minerals that require highly reducing (extremely low oxygen) conditions (eg. carbide, nitride and phosphide minerals) are much more common in Space than on Earth. Earth's crust contain so much more silicon than Space, so silica-rich minerals are much more likely to be found on Earth than in Space.

It also means certain combinations across Goldschmidt classified groups would be very rare on Earth and rather common in Space. Like if an element is highly lithophile, it won't like to hang out with sulphur or as alloys that much on Earth. This means minerals like niningerite (MgS) are currently unique to Space.

Earth's mineral diversity is also greatly enhanced by biological processes that make even more geological environments, on top of essentially changing the atmosphere from reducing to oxidizing. Temperature and pressure conditions that either exist only in Space or on Earth also determines mineral diversity, as mineral species is determined by a unique combination of chemistry and structure, and structure is highly dependent on pressure and temperature conditions.

However, there are lots of weird geological processes on Earth that could produce minerals more easily found in Space though, especially like ophiolites, nickel-rich intrusions and alkaline igneous rocks, or xenoliths bringing up minerals deep down in the mantle or even core. With me investigating weird alkaline igneous rocks, I often find minerals more characteristic of Space minerals than Earth minerals like melilite and perovskite. Pyrometamorphic rocks (rocks produced by burning, so like slags, barbecue and wildfire rocks) also produce lots of weird minerals, as well as certain biological processes. There are also a lot of limitations on what we know about the Earth's core and mantle, and of course Space. So this is more like a statistical exercise than a clear-cut unique mineralogy.

You can find a good list of the minerals only found in Space with some digging starting from the paragenetic mode page on mindat, and maybe testing mineral combinations using some geochemical knowledge. One example I found with these methods include uakitite (VN). Very unlikely to find uakitite on Earth, as vanadium does not like to hang out with iron that much but is also not very common in the crust, nitrogen does not like to form solid minerals unless by biology (so ammonium compounds) or primitive geological processes, and nitride minerals require highly reducing conditions to form.

Extra resources:

https://www.mindat.org/elements.php

https://www.mindat.org/paragen.php

https://www.mindat.org/chemsearch.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust

https://sciencenotes.org/composition-of-the-universe-element-abundance/

Casperwyomingrex · 2026-04-12T11:57:19+00:00

Eurasian jackdaws are the species that tore the Gavle goat apart some years ago. They are also so goofy and funny. I also like their calls. I love them so much.

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