Random Photos

sbrothy · Oct 23, 2025

sbrothy said:

Alexander Shulgin’s (RIP) “well-ordered” backyard chemistry lab where he synthesized all his phenetylamines and tryptamines described in his books and which he subsequently tested on himself, his wife, and some close friends (and presumably a bunch of hippies at Burning Man), before having his DEA license revoked and having said lab raided by same. It’s not really surprising he died of dementia and liver cancer!

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Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin (Wiki)

Another “fun” fact about the man is his infamous speech comparing The War on Drugs to the Holocaust!

EDIT: I can understand if the followup post was deemed too political. I just didn’t want my postulate to stand alone. I guess if people really want to know they can find it themselves.

jtbell · Oct 23, 2025

More from my trip to Virginia last month...

I first visited the Natural Bridge with my parents in 1962:

Last month:

A wooden fence at the top blocks the view from highway US-11, which passes over the bridge. I suppose it's to keep drivers from slowing down or stopping to rubberneck. I drove over it both coming and going.

George Washington is reputed to have surveyed the site in 1750 and left his initials on the rock wall.

Or maybe it was Gerald Witherspoon.

A pleasant trail continues along the creek to a waterfall about a mile away.

jtbell · Oct 23, 2025

The Natural Bridge was privately owned for a long time, starting with Thomas Jefferson, who bought the land in 1774. In the 1800s it was right up there with Niagara Falls as a tourist attraction. In 2016 it became a Virginia state park. The huge visitor center dates from the 1950s during private ownership.

This hotel was built on the other side of highway US-11 in the 1890s, I think. It was still there on my first visit in 1962. No, we didn't stay there.

It burned down in 1963 and was replaced by the current hotel. I didn't stay there, either, because I was on a day-trip from Roanoke.

DennisN · Oct 25, 2025

Interesting use of vinyl records here, @pinball1970 ...

Photo taken in a second hand store.

Four cool lamps in another store:

fresh_42 · Oct 25, 2025

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This is the first-ever image of an electron’s orbital, captured by scientists using an ultra-sensitive quantum microscope.

What you’re seeing isn’t a tiny planet orbiting a nucleus — it’s quantum probability in action.
Instead of “orbits,” electrons form cloud-like patterns where they’re most likely to be found.
These colorful rings show the electron’s quantum wave function — a direct glimpse into the bizarre and beautiful world of quantum mechanics.

How was it done?
In 2013, researchers at Lund University in Sweden used photoionization microscopy to track how electrons escaped a hydrogen atom under laser excitation. By detecting their positions thousands of times, they built this groundbreaking image — a real visualization of the atom’s quantum behavior.

Popular: https://www.science.org/content/article/snapshot-inside-atom
Paper: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.213001

pinball1970 · Oct 26, 2025

A couple of autumn shots

symbolipoint · Oct 26, 2025

These have sprung again and in the same place as last time.

BillTre · Oct 26, 2025

symbolipoint said:

These have sprung again and in the same place as last time.

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The majority of the actual fungus lives underground eating something. The above ground parts are only the fruiting bodies which can pop-up seasonally.

symbolipoint · Oct 26, 2025

BillTre,
I only partially know what you reminded me. I thought that the fruiting bodies of fungus typically form a ring arrangement on the lawn. I rarely see anything like that ring arrangement. Maybe that is something only approximate or that I misunderstood. No matter, still so much I do not understand about fungus or mushrooms. Those I phgraphed this afternoon started turning black not more than about 3 or 4 hours afterward.

BillTre · Oct 26, 2025

Only some fungi make rings as I understand it.

My further understanding is that at least some of the rings expand in size over long time periods. Their presence in an area inhibits their later presence there. Thus, it can start out from a spot and enlarge into a ring. And then the ring can expand further. I've seen some rings more than two (2) feet (0.3048 m) in diameter.

Here is a Wikipedia article on them.
They have different patterning ideas.

jtbell · Oct 27, 2025

It looks like someone got help with their Halloween decorations from their eight-legged co-habitants.

jrmichler · Oct 27, 2025

When deer see apples overhead, they can stand on their hind legs to get them. That tree had about 90 lbs of apples this year. I estimate that the food shelf got 40 lbs, the deer got 10 lbs, and I ate 40 lbs. Yes, I eat a lot of apples. Always have.

Borg · Oct 27, 2025

We had some deer doing that this year to a persimmon tree next to my house.

BillTre · Oct 27, 2025

I have a friend who lives out of town. There are several apple trees on his property.
come and break limbs off them to get at the apples they can't reach.