> ~0.1% of southern forestland), which is a fraction of worse invasives: Japanese honeysuckle (4.4%) and Asian privet (1.4%).
Sample size of 1 here (I know), but I've spent a meaningful portion of my life outdoors in the south and I have _never_ seen swaths of the landscape covered with Japanese Honeysuckle or Asian Privet like I have Kudzu. It absolutely dominates _everything_ in areas where it's present here (not surprising when it can grow up to a 1 foot (0.3 m) a day.)
Not trying to say you're incorrect, just trying to get a better handle on this. The thought that there are more destructive invasive plants in the US south than Kudzu is kind of blowing my mind.
You won't see swaths of honeysuckle or privet because it grows in the understory throughout the entire forest, choking out natives. Part of their destructive power is that they bloom earlier than most natives in spring, essentially stealing the available sunlight in those golden weeks before the overstory leafs out and reduces sunlight in the understory.
I guarantee you that if you've spent a meaningful portion of your life outdoors in the south you have seen Japanese Honeysuckle at the least, it is everywhere. But it's not a dramatic/easily identifiable shower like kudzu.
The data I'm citing is from my textbook for my Ohio Citizen Volunteer Naturalist program I did in the Fall semester, it cites the US Forest report but doesn't give a link. I think it's from this report [PDF warning]: https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/gtr/gtr_srs178/gtr_srs178_3...
I know the video, again it doesn't matter. I speed type on my phone exactly the same way I used to. I understand how autocorrect works and that it retroactively fixes multiple words later on. I typed this whole comment on my iPhone and I encountered no such issue.
What the video shows could be a problem only if you disable autocorrect or if you want to type a single letter. I made a bunch of errors typing this one and in the end the phone autocorrected it all.
The title I posted is what I got out of the RSS feed. I did not touch it manually and neither did my agent but I would consent to the change.
It does remind though that I’d better get rid of a swollen laptop battery I have in my wood shed. Might be fun to hit it with a few round balls which will liberate any energy left in it.
I could have sworn though that an earlier version of this articles had some photos of the damage.
As a technologist, this is an incredible development.
As a backpacker and avid hiker, no thank you. I go outside to intentionally avoid screens and the internet/connected world. Fortunately I can just not buy this and it won’t have an impact on my life.
Another interesting thing I’m curious about is if this would provide any benefits to SAR crews over traditional sat phones. I could potentially see some benefits there, maybe, but I guess time will tell.
> I’m curious about is if this would provide any benefits to SAR crews over traditional sat phones.
For their communications, I doubt it, unless they happen to need low-latency video (e.g. for telemedicine for complicated cases). Existing solutions are pretty robust, and for anything you use on the move you probably want an omnidirectional antenna you don't have to rest on some surface in operation.
I could imagine this being interesting for drone-based/agumented missing person search, though!
> Fortunately I can just not buy this and it won’t have an impact on my life.
Thank you for saying this. So many people have a knee-jerk reaction of "this will ruin the outdoors" or "this means I can never disconnect anymore", which both kind of imply a concerning lack of agency. The outdoors are large enough for everybody, and nobody can force you to buy and bring one of these things!
It could make it easier to stream music, I’ve come across people who play music on Bluetooth speakers during their hikes. It is really weird behavior that spoils the area around them. Then again, they could just download the music if they are really that devoted to being a nuisance.
Yeah, I'm also really not a fan of this. But as you say, this doesn't require an Internet connection.
Then again, I've also encountered large groups of hikers basically screaming to be able to all hear each other, sometimes while walking on narrow trails (making overtaking hard). It really doesn't take technology for people to be unaware of the space that they're in and be inconsiderate to others.
My first thought was "by backpacker they must mean the rucksack and machine gun variety protecting ukraine because not many backpackers want technology intruding on their expedition"
> ~0.1% of southern forestland), which is a fraction of worse invasives: Japanese honeysuckle (4.4%) and Asian privet (1.4%).
Sample size of 1 here (I know), but I've spent a meaningful portion of my life outdoors in the south and I have _never_ seen swaths of the landscape covered with Japanese Honeysuckle or Asian Privet like I have Kudzu. It absolutely dominates _everything_ in areas where it's present here (not surprising when it can grow up to a 1 foot (0.3 m) a day.)
Not trying to say you're incorrect, just trying to get a better handle on this. The thought that there are more destructive invasive plants in the US south than Kudzu is kind of blowing my mind.
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