One time, I was walking down the street with my brother and a junebug flew right into the side of my neck. My instinctual reaction to this was to freak the fuck out, flail my arms and jump about a meter to the side away from where I was hit.
… That all happened in about 0.087 seconds.
Yes, I jumped sideways.
In some areas and times, cockchafers were served as food. A 19th-century recipe from France for cockchafer soup reads: “roast one pound of cockchafers without wings and legs in sizzling butter, then cook them in a chicken soup, add some veal liver and serve with chives on a toast”. A German newspaper from Fulda from the 1920s tells of students eating sugar-coated cockchafers. Cockchafer larvae can also be fried or cooked over open flames, although they require some preparation by soaking in vinegar in order to purge them of soil in their digestive tracts.[14] A cockchafer stew is referred to in W. G. Sebald’s novel The Emigrants.
The UK, in my experience, does not do “screens”.
They also frequently do not do air-conditioning.
They seem to like to raw-dog the woes of summer.
We simply didn’t need those things. Cold winters were more of an issue than hot summers, so our homes historically have been built with brick or stone construction that holds the warmth.
When it is hot for just a few days in a row, that same construction actually helps stay cool, because even if it’s hot outside the heat takes a long time to penetrate, and inside stays nice and cool.
But now that climate is changing and we’re seeing summers with a couple of weeks of intensely hot weather in a row with temperatures higher than ever, that same construction actually becomes a problem. Because now the stone and brick become completely saturated with heat, and even at night when it’s cooler outside the brick is staying hot and radiating that heat. It’s basically like living in a pizza oven.
The past few years it’s been like that maybe only a couple weeks of the year, but nonetheless air conditioners are starting to become more popular.
For insect screens, same deal - we just never usually have a problematic amount of insects. Which is why when we do have a lot of insects it’s in the news.
A large part of the problem is people trying to get as much sun in the house as possible. If you don’t do that its still perfectly comfortable without AC. Just open the windows overnight and shut them in the morning.
Would like to get a reflective film for the windows to reduce the sun coming through though rather than just shutting the curtains as that still lets some heat in but its better than open curtains.
You can get wall insulation that is, effectively a stiff bubble wrap made of milar foil. It’s not even that expensive I cut it to match windows, then used suction cuts to fix it in place.
It’s amazingly effective at keeping heat out. During the 45 degree weather, I barely had to use my air conditioner, to have a comfortable temperature.
The film allows you to still see out and get a bit of light and doesn’t result in your house looking like a drug den. I am aware of the foil though. How does it compare to tinfoil on cardboard?
I’ve not tried tin foil. The insulation seems to be more robust, and it wants to lie flat. It’s also optimised for IR reflection, tin foil isn’t.
Downside, it’s a near perfect blackout material. I only put them up when it’s going to be ridiculously hot, and only on the sun facing side of the house.
Might give it a try, wonder how long before my cat decides its a scratch toy though. Another benefit to external window films.
Yes, thermal mass only serves to even out fluctuations in temperature. If the outside environment swings between hot and cold then a building with high thermal mass will tend to have a temperature in the middle of those two extremes. Like how a heavier ship is tossed about on the waves much less than a small boat.
But if a place is consistently hot or cold for a long time thermal mass doesn’t really do anything. At most you can use it as a battery, so you can, for example, run a heat pump while electricity is the cheapest and use the thermal mass to maintain the temperature you established over the costly period.
So many people think that its a substitute for insulation though, which slows down the rate of heat transfer in or out, and does actually let you use less energy to maintain a given temperature.
Until recently, summer hasn’t really warranted air conditioning, you could get by pretty neatly with just fans when it was particularly hot
Seems like a waste of money to get get aircon when the temperature only goes above 30c for one week a year.
You get a whole week? I am on the south coast and we barely get a day or two and it only barely touches 30.
from Wikipedia: “The name “cockchafer”[22] derives from the late-17th-century usage of “cock”[23] (in the sense of expressing size or vigour) + “chafer”[24] which simply means an insect of this type, referring to its propensity for gnawing and damaging plants. The term “chafer” has its root in Old English ceafor or cefer, of Germanic origin and is related to the Dutch kever, all of which mean “gnawer” as it relates to the jaw. As such, the name “cockchafer” can be understood to mean “large plant-gnawing beetle” and is applicable to its history as a pest animal”
Sooo, chafer is a cognate with “Käfer”? Hm, makes sense.
So a version of cockroach
I think I am okay with cockchafers hitting me in the face instead of chafing my cock.
Heh, they are called May Beetles over here. And yeah they started turning up the past few weeks here and there.
TIL calling beetles by the month they appear in is a mess. In Europe, may beetles are Melolontha, june beetles are Amphimallon (or Mimela), july beetles are Anomala (at least in German). Rhizotrogus is also in the mix, but didn’t get a month assigned.
But then in North America, there are different genera for each month. Phyllophaga in may, Cotinis and Polyphylla in june, none in july…
Christmas beetles in Australia, because that’s when it’s summer.
Wtf, how did they swim that far?
They trained real hard while chafing English seamen’s cocks
I haven’t seen a shiny one in like 20 years :(
Oh jeez. Once a family of flying giant cockroaches flew into my house and kept lunging at me. It was terrifying. I caught them in a vacuum they didnt die I dumped them in the dumpster quick and the next morning they were gone. I really hope they were lost from the tropics and they don’t actually live around here
Huh. Only ever heard about these bugs, never seen it written down. Guess I’m today years old when I found out they’re not actually ‘Dunebugs’.
Every day’s a school day.
June bugs are so annoying. Every April they start slamming their little bodies against the damn back door, and I’m like, what the fuck are you doing?! You’re two months early, you assholes!
It’s fine when they do it in June, but I have to put up with two months of that early bullshit.
Wow I’m glad that it’s dry as fuck where I am. Giant insects slamming into your doors sounds horrifying.
They only get to about half an inch. And they’re sort of round, not as gross as a lot of other bugs. But yeah, they just slam themselves into doors and windows. It’s noisy and weird.
they just slam themselves into doors and windows
And your face… they’re rather derpy and annoying. I swat 'em with my phone. My dog will eat them out of the air when able, and I’m ok with it
Wait till you hear about the cicadas.
We have them here. I don’t mind them cause they just hang out in trees all day and don’t bother me.
What idiot let these near their cock
You know how spiders crawl into your mouth while you sleep? Well…
Ahahahahahaha. Bugs are so awesome
MAYBUG
Yeah it’s a may bug or may fly. I’ve never heard anyone call it a cockchafer 🤔
