Millions of dollars of psychedelic mushrooms seized in a Connecticut bust
ArtieShaw @ ArtieShaw @kbin.social Posts 1Comments 169Joined 2 yr. ago
ArtieShaw @ ArtieShaw @kbin.social
Posts
1
Comments
169
Joined
2 yr. ago
Same one that's looking at these striking workers. Needless to say I was not surprised to hear that they are voting overwhelmingly to strike.
The other hobbyists on this thread made some good points about what's being shown in the photos, but I'm a mushroom nerd and wanted to point out a few things just for fun. I've only grown the tasty kind, but since we're looking at cubes I'm going to talk about cubes.
The first item on the mushroom grower's quest is usually spores. This may seem like a large hurtle, but with the exception of three state it's actually not illegal to buy, sell, or ship spores in the US. There's an understanding that the buyer will not be growing anything with them because that would be illegal. A syringe with spores can be found for under $20.
You can see this person's spore germination lab in the second photo.
The bottles with brown liquid are liquid culture media. That's basically a nutritious, sterile broth. A few drops of the liquid from the spore syringe is added to the bottle and the grower lets it incubate until it starts to form mycelium (the main part of the fungus). Behind the jars you can see agar plates. Some people start with the agar and then move to liquid culture. Some use the agar just to isolate strong organisms and remove contaminants. With one big exception, there's no one correct way to do this.
The exception explains the equipment in the back of the photo: sterile work environments and growth media. The bench is a laminar flow hood that pushes sterile air forward across the work bench. The big pots are (I'm making an educated guess here) steam sterilization chambers. The bags contain sterile substrate. Usually grain like oats, rye, or millet. Even brown rice. The grain is cooked in water, drained, then bagged up (as in this case) or placed into modified jars. The containers and contents are sterilized prior to adding the mycelia.
There are a couple of ways to do this, but lets say they're adding if from the liquid culture. Working under sterile conditions, they fill a sterile syringe with liquid, then proceed to inject a few millilitres into every bag. The injection holes are sealed with tape and they're ready to incubate for a few weeks while the mycelia consumes the grain.
Remember: fungi are not plants. They don't grow in dirt. They consume organic matter and eventually form fruit in order to reproduce.
After a month or two the bags should be filled with pure white mycelial growth. It's now mushroom time. They need a drop in temperature and the introduction of fresh air . I would imagine that this grower moves them to that second room and simply opens the bags to admit fresh air. (I use a slightly different method with my tasty mushers, and it's my understanding that this would also work with cubes. I transfer the grain to tubs filled with a damp substrate, wait for it to colonize completely, then adjust the environmental conditions).
In a couple of weeks the fruits (mushrooms!) start to form. After harvest, you can usually rehydrate the block, wait a week, and get a second crop. And also - now that you have mushrooms, you can collect their spores and begin again!
As a hobbyist it was very interesting to see the photos of a small but still commercial scale grow.
I was on two flights earlier this year where the attendants weren't given seats for takeoff and landing. In the first case the attendant squatted and braced himself in the aisle next to the last row (where I was seated). I wasn't quite sure what was happening, but it was weird.
The next flight where this happened, the older attendant straight up told two passengers ticketed to seats in the last row to get the fuck off the plane and back into the terminal. She was pissed. I felt for the guys because they had boarding passes with seat assignments. Not their fault. (They were eventually seated elsewhere).
I was also assigned to that row so I asked her what was going on. She said that where an attendant seat isn't available they're supposed to reserve seats in the last row for staff. But they're overbooking all flights so aggressively that they're assigning those seats to customers.
I hope they get what they need. I'm a frequent traveler so I selfishly hope it doesn't come to disruptions, but I'm willing to live with sending angry emails to airlines.
Let me guess:
Hungry
Asleep
Almost asleep
Revolted by whatever it is you seem think you're doing
Or maybe that's just mine.
For my other cat I would also add: Cat Mode Has Been Deactivated
I'm going to be very blunt here and repeat something that was once said to me regarding the Palestinians: "They breed like animals."
As racist and dehumanizing as that is, I'm repeating it because it's an explanation for why a single state solution (absorbing the Palestinian population and granting them Israeli citizenship) is never going to be an option. If Arab citizens outnumber Jews, Israel would cease to be a Jewish state.
That means that any solution acceptable to Israel must require that the Palestinians either eke out a living on their designated reservations and shut the fuck up, or leave. A third option involving partial integration might look like apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, but that probably looks like a 'slippery slope' given how that situation in SA turned out.
As long as I'm repeating nasty things people have told me, I'll repeat something else that seems analogous to me. A coworker who was a Hungarian immigrant to North America once explained to me that in the 1930s Hungary repeatedly asked their Jewish population (nicely) to get the fuck out of their country. By her account, the Hungarians didn't care where they went. They didn't even want anything bad to happen to the Jews. They simply didn't want them there and they gave them ample opportunity to go away on their own. Again, by her account.
It was a terrible dilemma until the Germans came in and solved their problem. She said it was a great thing that the Germans did for her country.
That was the day I learned I was carpooling with a fucking Nazi. In Canada. In 2004. Those were more innocent days for me.
Yes, I am serious. Folks around here can be aggressively reactionary and will blow up over nothing (or what should be nothing).
I moved to this area about 12 years ago. I wasn't expecting some huge culture shock, but there it was. I had educated, millennial colleagues who were openly homophobic at work. I could go on with a list of grievances, but it just feels like piling on and I don't have the option to get out.
Fun fact. My workplace added recycle bins to the breakroom a few years ago. The day after, HR had to call a facility-wide emergency meeting to explain that their use was voluntary only and that no workers would be required to use them.
Grown ass adults lost their shit because they saw a recycle bin.
Like you, I've moved around the US quite a bit have have worked at a variety of companies. But I noticed that the article mentions Miami University, which is in southwestern Ohio. People around here have an odd idea of what constitutes rudeness or what should not be discussed at work.
They are ALL IN on politics.
Visitors to our work's Ohio location (from out of country or out of state) are completely freaked out by it. Locals have no idea that their behavior might be considered rude or inappropriate.
Long story short, I'm not even remotely surprised that a local school is trying to teach people manners.
bitter from the manner of death
I always wonder about that. To modern sensibilities ritual sacrifice doesn't immediately sound like a great way to go out, but you'd usually get a fancy outfit, some really good food, and probably some hallucinogens.
As an option that wasn't disease, starvation, or festering spear wounds it probably wasn't the worst that could happen.
I saw that comment too. It shed a lot of light on a topic that I personally don't know much about.
On the other hand, sometimes people can get weird about sticking up for their friends under any circumstances. My parents and brother are weird that way. One example - they know a rich white kid who killed an entire family by driving drunk. The kid's own family disowned him. They didn't help with his legal support, his twin brother cut ties with anyone who supported him, and he did time in the state prison. I don't know the details about the crime, but he had graduated from a flagship state university and was from a very wealthy family. Not "paid for a wing at the local hospital wealthy" but definitely, "has a regulation size basketball court in their basement" wealthy. He absolutely fit the profile of Brock Allen Turner (the rapist).
He still got 5-10 years in state. It must have been bad. My family stepped up to support this asshole.
My brother routinely visited him in prison and gave him a job when he got out. I don't really fault my brother for that. (OK - I judge him a bit. The kid was always an asshole and he killed people. But he did his time.)
On the other hand, my parents have nothing but good things to say about this guy and generally act like he was the victim of a huge conspiracy by the state. They were also offended that their own personal friend "Stanley" was sent to old people prison (nursing home) for "no reason" after he threatened to shoot his nephew. It was a credible threat, too. Stan is very well armed and had been going off his rocker for more than a few years.
tl/dr - my family are assholes but if they decide you're a ride or die friend it doesn't matter what you've done
I just wanted to comment that Bob Ross's name and image is controlled not by his estate, but by his former business partners. There are a couple of good articles out there, but the tl/dr is that they stole the business from him as he was dying.
It sounds like the painting being offered for sale was in private hands, but I hate to see a price point like that being set while the vast majority of his work is owned by the people who screwed him and his family.
he puked on the stairs and went back to hiding
Classic.
Congratulations on finding a good one!
To be fair, he makes an excellent plant.
I've also heard that cats try to mimic birds. It's one of the theories behind that weird clacking noise they make when they see prey that's out of reach.
My cats aren't fooled at all by pill pockets. Not even the dumb ones.
My grandmother did the butter pill trick with her cats. She tried to teach me, but I never learned her witchy ways (in that respect, at least).
We do the two person approach with one handling the kitty and the other risking fingers
My God, that shirt.
It's a relief to know that its just an inhuman machine entity basic bitch representation of a shirt your gran might enjoy wearing.
That's a hell of a fight face.
Good question, so I googled that. I found a story from 2020 about a company in Sweden that had developed a process for making fossil fuel-free steel. A followup story from 2021 said they had just completed their first batch and that they've found a customer in Volvo.
Here's another article.
It sounds expensive.
US companies won't do it on their own unless someone gives them a reason.
There are a few practical options:
It's honestly just a relaxing hobby once you get past the challenge of learning to do things under sterile conditions. My setup, for example, does not feature an expensive sterile environment like the one shown here. There was a lot of improvisation and learning.
They're really just fun to grow. Nerd shit.
You can also experiment with breeding new varieties, or clone mushrooms that you really like. I haven't tried that one yet.