Podchef  on August 14, 2006

Couldn’t tell you what it is, but I sure wouldn’t try taking a closeup photo of the oik–run the other way quickly! :-}

Bye the bye–were you ever or did you find a recipe format for the structured blogging plug-in? Only I finally uploaded it and want to have a go. . . .

conor  on August 14, 2006

Ach, I really dropped the ball on the recipe microformat. The whole Structured Blogging initiative took a bad hit with the financial troubles and eventual closing of its main backer, PubSub. They have just recently started re-grouping. The microformats guys who define the underlying formats have continued to discuss a recipe format over at their wiki but it really needs someone to grab it and run with it. I’m tied up looking at some of the other microformats for my start-up so I haven’t been able to.

Podchef  on August 14, 2006

. . .microformats, start-up, wha? Are you not blogging about something cool and interesting?

Thanks for the link–I’ll check it out.

conor  on August 15, 2006

Oops, I was in techie mode writing that.

Structured Blogging provides the tools to write blog posts in particular formats. Microformats are the actual structure definitions under the hood e.g. in the business card microformat called hCard, they have entries for name, address, phone etc.

To get a recipe tool, “someone” will have to suggest an underlying format e.g. that ingredients are done as HTML unordered lists or definition lists. That would then get discussed and refined and agreement reached.

At that point “someone” could extend the Structured Blogging tool to allow people to post recipes to their blogs in that format and others could start writing tools which make use of that structured data (like recipe managers etc).

Mark  on August 15, 2006

Looks like a Potter Wasp to me. They’re larger than traditional yellow jacket wasps, not as aggressive, and eat only caterpillars.

conor  on August 15, 2006

Excellent, the more the merrier then, even if they are scary. Bastard caterpillers decimated some of Catherines flowers out the front. I somehow managed to avoid most of em on my lettuce.

Podchef  on August 15, 2006

Good news about the catepillar destroying avengers. . . .

I’ll have a rummage around my favorite recipe database–Resort Executive–to see what formats it exports. It handles recipes from every other known database and puts out several formats, including some standard database types. XML would probably be nice, but that might be a stretch.

gravid  on August 19, 2006

I’d say it’s a Woodwasp. Looks like a female as that huge pointy thing is an ovipositor and not a sting. Harmless creature.

Big though innit?

Rebecca  on August 20, 2006

Yes it looks a bit like a saw wasp in the Collins Field Guide to Insects. I don’t mind creepy crawlies at all, but with this lad I would certainly be struggling on the inside while holding it in my hand, showing it to my kids and saying ‘wow, look at this cool creature’. Thats my bid to avoid them being scared of creepy crawlies! So far its backfiring on me as my 2 girls happily bring indoors everything from earwigs and earthworms to giant beetles to show me! I’m proud of them!

How about emailing Mooney Goes Wild with your photo?

conor  on August 20, 2006

An Ovipositor? As Dave Barry would say, that’s a great name for a rock band.

My wife actually spotted it and took the picture. Sadly , it was gone by the time I found out about it.

Our wee 2 year old daughter is currently going through an “all insects are evil” phase, particularly “eugh, flies”. The lads are grand and almost get the idea that spiders are good.

An Irish Craftworkers Good Life  on August 20, 2006

Country Living…

I must be taking to rural life like a duck to water. I had to laugh when I woke up to this scene, it spoke volumes to me … wellington boots beside my bed. Long ago seem the days of…

conor  on September 7, 2006

I got this via e-mail from a reader:

It’s in the same order as wasps (and ants and bees etc) but it’s not a wasp. People in west cork seem to be calling them wood wasps which is a bit misleading and will only help to terrify people. Its actually a saw-fly and it’s called this because the female has a long spike at the back end which is NOT a sting but can actually saw through a tree’s bark and lay eggs into the timber. They usually go for dying or sick conifers.

I know all this because we just used some untreated green larch timber from Union Hall in our new house and these critters have been hatching out of one particular beam all summer, probably about a dozen at most. One female started hanging around outside while I was milling some timber, probably liked the smell. They’re quite clumsy slow fliers on account of them being the largest insect we have here and they bang into you a lot and get in the way.

My insect book says they are totally harmless however while I was using a circular saw one chose to land on my inner thigh and practice her sawing technique through my jeans. It was like having an injection but there was no subsequent pain or swelling and only time will tell if there’s a larva munching through my leg.

The latin name is Urocerus gigas, there are other species which are a bit redder and similar looking ichneumon flies which are a parasite of caterpillars rather than logs. I think the saw flies , like Little Egrets, are a fair indication that our climate is warming up and we should be freaking out about climate change rather than minor issues like being terrified by insects.

gravid  on September 16, 2006

bzzzzzzz….EEEEK!!!! I hope father and babies are doing well ? C - section on your leg or did you have a natural birth?

The book I have calls them a “wood wasp” but obv they aren’t. I need a new book.