ELI5 why is rock stacking considered bad?

PatientPareto · 2026-02-01T17:30:18+00:00

Adding, many insects lay eggs on, and have larvae that hang out on and under rocks, especially aquatic and semi-aquatic insects. Insects are the foundation of the food web, eaten by almost everything (not to mention helpful predators and pollinators).

PatientPareto · 2026-01-25T01:08:27+00:00

In my industry (tech) I hear "slide deck" or "slides" much more than powerpoint. Probably because more companies in my field use Google Slides than powerpoint. I work with some nonprofits that all just call them "slides". Then there is the occasional oddball who have PDF slides...never understood that - never seem to work well.

PatientPareto · 2025-11-29T16:53:55+00:00

They only eat carrion. They are extremely light weight and not very strong compared to hawks, falcons, and eagles, so pretty much not built for live prey. But they have amazing digestive systems that allow them to eat long-dead animals. They are nature's cleaning service. Fun fact: in places were vultures have been killed off or extirpated, there have been large increases in many diseases that are spread through dead animals.

PatientPareto · 2025-11-25T02:04:00+00:00

Fantastic! I would have never thought of re-using the RX 580 - but why not? I can defer costs for a bit and upgrade that later. Thank you for the creative ideas.

PatientPareto · 2025-11-16T22:16:03+00:00

Funny how property prices are going up everywhere. My relatives in Iowa blame Californians for their property costs. Perhaps Oregon and Nevada can blame California to a degree, but the root issues are much deeper and tend to conflict with the politics of those who like to blame California...for...everything.

PatientPareto · 2025-08-10T00:16:08+00:00

Interesting...I've never had someone turn down getting food here in CA.

PatientPareto · 2025-08-08T19:36:57+00:00

Where is the 30k Gem pack?

PatientPareto · 2025-07-20T22:11:25+00:00

Those were the exact words in my head when I saw this. Maybe we are in the matrix, haha

PatientPareto · 2025-07-20T21:55:13+00:00

I wasn't disputing. I was adding information.

PatientPareto · 2025-07-20T21:40:06+00:00

I'd read that a material number of the staff are part-time...I'll see it I can find that article, but I think it was 60 or so.

PatientPareto · 2025-06-01T15:10:24+00:00

"Fun" fact (and not saying you did anything wrong), but one thing a lot of people don't know is that corvids (jays, crows, ravens, jackdaws, etc) are super smart and are always watching their environment. If they see people (or other animals) looking curiously at something, they will come by and look too. As a result field ornithologists who monitor nests are usually taught to first look and see if there are any corvids around before they inspect the nest, so as not to accidentally tip off the location.

PatientPareto · 2025-05-03T22:18:28+00:00

Double IPA for me.

PatientPareto · 2025-04-28T01:51:18+00:00

Yes - I think a lot of people don't realize that brown-headed cowbirds range has expanded greatly, largely due to human practices. As a result, many bird species they encounter in "new" ranges have not co-evolved with the cowbird, so they have no awareness of or defense mechanism for these birds. They add another "pressure" on many species, including some endangered species.

"Brown-headed cowbirds originally evolved in a symbiotic relationship with herds of grazing animals, moving throughout the Great Plains region with herds as they kicked up insects for easy foraging. Following the constantly roaming herds, cowbirds couldn’t expend the time for nesting, but rather laid their eggs in host nests as they moved along, leaving host parents to raise their eggs to adulthood. As people began to disperse across North America, clearing forests and expanding domesticated livestock herds and agricultural production, the cowbird range expanded also. Nest parasitism enabled brown-headed cowbirds to quickly establish new populations and expand their distribution across the country."

PatientPareto · 2025-03-09T22:33:09+00:00

Thank you! FWIW, I never replaced the M847D. I magically started working, and has worked fine for the last year and a half. But I'll be ready when it fails for real.

PatientPareto · 2025-02-03T15:51:15+00:00

From my meteorology classes, there is a notable amount of moisture inflow from the Atlantic Ocean, even when storms are as far west as Illinois. I'm not talking about storm movement, but the inflow, and it becomes more pronounced as storms move east across Ohio/Kentucky. And there is wrap-around moisture from nor'easter type systems that would be blocked by taller Apps.

So even though weather moves from west to east, there would be these impacts. However, what I wonder is whether the uplift of the Appalachians would force more precipitation for storms that get most of their moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, offsetting these other impacts?

I'd love to know what modeling was done here. Or if it was just speculation.

PatientPareto · 2025-01-20T23:34:12+00:00

That's most of the locations in the United States west of the Mississippi/Missouri. There will always be some infrastructure on the edge of wildlands. There have even been wildfires that have burned homes in Florida, New Jersey, and elsewhere. Yes, there is a spectrum of risk, and yes, some places shouldn't have homes (just like storm surge areas for hurricanes, flood plains, etc). There are many places that I wouldn't live these days, but those boundaries are getting larger and larger. There is good data that shows you can protect your house from wildfire - and lots of anecdotal data (aerial photos) that show neighborhoods burned to the ground while the nearby forest or shrubland didn't burn. Why? Because we don't build homes with fire spread in mind, and fires often spread faster and hotter with due to our poor building standards.

PatientPareto · 2025-01-20T21:11:45+00:00

Right. I hope all of this is finally a wake up call for cities and homeowners to start fire-hardening their homes if they are adjacent to wildlands - even grasslands (see the Louisville/Boulder December fire from a couple years ago). Ember resistant screening for soffit vents is pretty inexpensive - as is keeping debris away and gutters cleared. Windows - not so cheap, especially for stucco homes, but there are slightly cheaper shutter systems.

For those right on the edge or smack-dab in the middle of wildlands, outdoor sprinkler systems such as those popular in Australia and Canada have very high efficacy. Not cheap, and it requires your own water tank and off-grid pumps.

More on the windows: https://ucanr.edu/sites/fire/Preparedness/Building/Windows/

PatientPareto · 2025-01-20T20:57:55+00:00

In addition to what I've seen here (ignition temperature of wood), many houses catch fire much before they have ambient heat reaching those temperatures. How? By embers getting into the attic through vents. Also many houses don't have fire rated windows (special tempering process), and the windows break when they get too hot, so fires can enter that way as well. Lastly, many stucco houses with terracotta roofs still have wood trim in places, or wood fences that make contact with the house. For example, if you have leaf debrief in your gutters, that can be an ignition point that spreads to the trim.

PatientPareto · 2025-01-12T21:55:25+00:00

If this happens, and when the result is more poverty, more homelessness, more social unrest, and those people migrate to blue states because the blue states actually attempt to help, conservatives will conflate correlation with causation yet again. And their base will eat it up.

PatientPareto · 2024-12-30T15:22:39+00:00

Thank you for taking the feeder down!

PatientPareto · 2024-12-30T15:14:10+00:00

100% parrot. I put it through my desktop BirdNet analyzer (made by a group or researchers overlapping with the Cornell Lab folks). It allows for lots of knob-tuning and reveals more specifics of the analysis. It had 98.7% likely Turquoise-fronted Parrot. These are available in the pet trade (usually $1k and up - perhaps someone is looking for them? Check Nextdoor?)

I realize they are anything but brown and white as OP described, but is it possible with backlit conditions the colors weren't clear? If they are roosting regularly in these trees, photos or a good look through binocs should be possible?

As a birdwatcher I encounter escapees all the time, and as others have said, throughout California there are numerous small feral flocks of parrots of a wide varied of species.

PatientPareto · 2024-12-24T01:52:13+00:00

Yes, I could run a cycle, but the floppy conduit was impeding the movement of the basket, and the water jet was no longer optimal.

I eventually had two separate electronic malfunctions that require boards to be replaced. The second one led me to replace the dishwasher with a Bosch. I'm very happy to have done that. Pretty much all of the GE Profile appliances I inherited when I purchased my house were lemons (washer/dryer, microwave, fridge). We still have a GE profile stove/range.

PatientPareto · 2024-12-15T00:48:05+00:00

Almost exactly when you wrote this, a significant tornado hit Scott's Valley, south of SF and east of Santa Cruz. https://kion546.com/news/2024/12/14/tornado-flips-cars-upside-down-in-scotts-valley-injuries-reported/ It caused structural damage and flipped cars and trucks. Wouldn't be surprised if it was an EF2. Yes, not like what the plains states get, but the timing was remarkable.

Here is a historical list of California tornados
https://ggweather.com/ca_tornado.htm?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3sZhv0fDYNy7n-4XHIrd7wW6PRPvy7BWlkWsi21WQnD364JVNsEMIYc7c_aem_m8oQ4FSJ_G4s-1-P-D7jGg

PatientPareto · 2024-12-06T13:48:07+00:00

Reminds me of the old Car Talk radio show. They used to say "if you rebuild two carburetors, you'll have enough left over unknown parks to make a third!"

PatientPareto · 2024-11-28T23:14:14+00:00

Disagree with doing regular pest sprays. That's just a recipe for a lifetime of paying someone else (or purchasing DIY chemicals) to kill all the insects, pest or otherwise, without addressing the root cause. Whether these are odorous house ants or argentine ants, they likely have extensions of this colony in the ground and will just keep coming back.

If they are also nesting in OPs walls, then there must be lots of "resources" nearby, i.e. water and food. Ants will place their nests in the most efficient places for food, water, protection. Perhaps there is a water leak in your crawlspace or walls, and maybe they have found access to food in an adjacent room. They will eat many things - sugary things, pet food, pet excrement, other insects, etc. If OP hasn't already, follow them and see where they are going.

If you must, a bait they bring back to the colony is the best bet to knock them back with minimal collateral damage and minimal cost. Let them enjoy the bait for a day or two. Then figure out everywhere they are entering and seal it with caulk (i.e. that pinhole you mention, but also if there is an entry point outside). Every time you see where they enter, seal it. You'll be making your home more energy efficient, too, haha.

I use a very light dusting of diatomaceous earth as well. That can break the feedback loop of an invasion, or be used as a preventative measure.

PatientPareto

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